Works well with others

Another memorable aspect of the job was hanging the foyer.

"The entry has a 36-fooi-high ceiling and we had to buy $2,000 worth of scaffolding to reach it," Volk says. "That is an interesting area and could have been most difficult. We had to get it perfect because once the scaffolding comes down, you don't want to have to put it back up to fix something."

The size of the job inevitably meant many trades working together. However, Volk says his good relationship with the GC helped the job run smoothly and that it is scheduled for completion by July 2003. However, because of its size, repairs, obstacles and scheduling conflicts are common.

"This house has a lot of change orders," Volk says. "They'll tell us to start a playhouse even though the plumber still has work to do. Or we cannot do part of the entry because the electrician or alarm people have to run wire. So, it gets left and we have to go back and do it to match the area around it. It's a problem when we have to go back and fix something time and time again, it throws the schedule off. If I have hangers there to complete the house and they can't quite complete it, I have to send them to another project. When the area is freed to be finished, I have to bring the same guys back to complete the work."

Each hallway with the barrel rolled ceilings took the hangers 95 hours of labor each. The metal took about 10 to hang and the tapers took about 55 hours to tape and skimcoat. Coordination of the trades, while challenging, was doable, Volk says. Other products Volk used included Hamilton Materials mud, Hamilton Materials TNT Lite for the skimcoat, National Gypsum dry-wall, USG drywall, Trim-Tex, Clinch-on cornerbead, Amcs taping tools and Select's Off-Angle Head to cove the off-angles.

"Mostly, we had the areas of the house to ourselves-we were working on since it was being done in wings or phases at a time," he says. "We started working downstairs in the right wing, where the maid's quarters and butler's pantry is. We actually managed to do the whole house with minimum people. It might normally take 18 hangers and 20 tapers to finish in the appropriate time, but we've been able to do most of the hanging with four or five people, or even less." W&C