Piles of Sheetrock lie outside the partially constructed building. The smell of fresh sawdust fills the nostrils. The buzzing saws and subsequent thump of lumber as it hits the floor intermingle with the sound of hammers driving in nails.
It is a home construction site much like every other construction site, but there is a difference.
Rain might pour down on other buildings; cold winds might whip through the gaping holes that will soon be blocked by thermal-pane windows.
This home is different because it is inside a building that houses a building trades program for high school students. The 1,800-square-foot ranch is under construction at Davea Career Center in Addison.
The future owner of the home, Dan Hurd, won’t be moving his possessions from his current home in Wheaton to this vaulted-ceiling custom ranch.
He has a mover lined up, Muehlfelt & Sons Inc. of Wheaton, that will bring the house to Hurd. The house will travel to a vacant lot on Great Western Avenue in unincorporated DuPage County, near Glen Ellyn.
Hurd even has a moving date, Oct. 3. This is the day when the sun may shine through the home’s skylights for the first time; it is the first day on which raindrops might fall against the cedar siding.
To make the move, the house will have to be taken apart.
The house, which is 63 feet wide and 27 feet from front to back, is actually two separate units. “Our doors to the outside are only 15 feet wide said Patrick Gill, who teaches the building trades program, “so we have to clear that.”
Although the vaulted ceilings, which made the rooms seem more spacious, resulted in a building height of 14 feet, it can clear the doors, Gill said.
The front portion of the house consists of a living room, entrance and two bedrooms; the back includes a kitchen with small dinette, family room, main bathroom, master bedroom and half-bath.
Inside the house, nothing appears unusual, although the doorways on the back end are a bit deeper, 7 1/2 inches instead of the more common 5 1/2 inches, to allow room for the bolts that will connect the two halves. The other difference is inside the walls: Electrical and plumbing lines, instead of running under the floors, run inside the walls of the house.
“We can’t put them under the floors because they would become damaged during moving,” Gill said.
When both pieces arrive on site, they will be wheeled into place atop a concrete foundation and basement, work not done by the students. The front and back will be fastened together with nine-inch bolts. Once the house has been bolted to the foundation, Hurd will arrange for licensed electricians and plumbers to connect electricity and plumbing.
Admittedly, this house is built by amateurs, such as Nathan Hung, 18, of Downers Grove, but as far as Hurd is concerned, it is superior to anything he could have put together if he had been the general contractor.
“It is better built,” he said. “The outside walls are six inches rather than four.”
Hurd isn’t just speculating on quality. Of the eight homes Davea students have constructed in this manner, Hurd has purchased two. The previous home he purchased in 1990 is also on Great Western Avenue on an adjoining lot. He sold that one and isn’t yet sure if he is going to live in this one.
Though quality was an important consideration in purchasing the house, his other was his desire to work with Davea. “It is important to work with the schools and help the students have this experience,” he said.
Finances were not an important consideration. “It is costing as much as if I had built it on site and been the general contractor,” he said.
The house costs $35,000, which covers materials plus 10 percent. The 10 percent is added to cover the school’s costs for such things as tools and electricity, Gill said. Average price for a lot in that area is $40,000.
Added to those figures are any on-site costs, such as electrical and plumbing work, the foundation and the building of a garage. The cost to move the building is about $14,000, Hurd said.
He does save himself the cost of some aspirin, however.
“If I were the general contractor, I would always have to be out on the site,” he said. “The students are being supervised at Davea.”
The school adheres to the building codes of the town where the house will be moved. As this house is going to an unincorporated area, DuPage County oversaw construction.
“We had to go through all the inspections that would have been made on site,” Gill said.
Although the goal was to complete the house by June, this one isn’t quite ready because of permit and materials delays, some of the same problems faced out in the real world of home construction.
About a month’s worth of work needs to be done. Hurd took the option of having students complete the work, such as installing windows, in September, when classes start again.
The houses weren’t always put together inside Davea. Originally, students built the houses on site. There were some disadvantages to that approach, according to Bruce Andersen, director of the center.
“We found that we were losing valuable instruction time transporting students,” Andersen said. “Also, we felt that by keeping the program inside Davea, the classroom could be utilized more easily. If there is something that the instructor thinks would lend itself to that setting, the students can immediately move between the two.”
The 55 students who work on the home are seniors at some of the 24 DuPage County high schools that have established a cooperative agreement with Davea. For half the day, students attend classes at their home high school; during the other half of the day, they come to Davea, where they get hands-on experience in various trades and occupations.
This is Gill’s first year teaching at the center. He is not a teacher by training; for the last 15 years he worked as an electrician on a variety of projects, from residential to large commercial projects in downtown Chicago, such as Sears Tower and the Standard Oil Building. One might say he just walked into this job.
“The contractor just told me to show up,” he said. “I had no idea what Davea was.”
As he completed his electrical maintenance work on the Davea center, he learned what Davea was all about; he also learned that Davea was looking for a new instructor for the building trades.
The program, he said, gives some students the chance to feel successful for the first time during their academic lives. “They come here and find out that they can be the best at something,” he said.
Brian Mack, 17, of Glendale Heights said he liked the hands-on training. “You get to work on problems that you don’t find in a book,” he said.
Some students find they don’t like construction. That’s fine with Gill. “At least they have tried it and found out now before they have invested a lot of time in their careers,” he said. “And it will give them some ideas of what to look for when they are purchasing a house.”
Having Gill come during their senior year taught the students something as well. “We had to get used to working for someone new,” Mack said.
Juniors, who are in their first year of the building trades program, build back-yard sheds, which are also sold to the public. “These sheds cost less than what you would pay retail,” Gill said, “and they are better built because we are using them as a tool to teach home construction.”
This year the students also tackled a back-yard gazebo.
Customers learn about the houses and sheds in a variety of ways, Andersen said.
“Some of it is word of mouth, some of it is through advertising,” he said.
Hurd learned about the house when his office as director of the School Association for Special Education in DuPage County was located within the center. “I sometimes had lunch with the building trades teacher, and he told me about it,” Hurd said.
Gill would like to form a partnership with Habitat for Humanity, an organization that builds homes for people of limited income and that has recently expanded into DuPage County. “If we could get the materials donated, this would be a good project for the students. They would see it going to a worthy cause,” Gill said.
He said he would also like to see his students spend some time helping Habitat with on-site projects.
The experience the students receive during two years of training should provide them with enough competence to enter apprenticeship programs, Gill said.
Representatives from two local trade unions say the job and salary outlooks are good. Apprentice electricians earn $9.72 an hour to start, according to Pat Zak, business representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 701 in Lisle. The current pay is $24.30 per hour for those who have completed a five-year apprenticeship.
A similar situation exists for carpenters, according to Chester Orlowski, business manager for the Carpenters Local Union No. 1889 in Lisle. First-year apprentices earn $9.36 per hour; carpenters who have completed four-year apprenticeships earn $23.40 per hour.
Some students, like Mack, will begin apprenticeships now. Others, like Bob Pintozzi, 18, of La Grange and Tim Anderson, 18, of Lombard, will continue their schooling. “We are going on to College of DuPage,” Anderson said.
Although the trades can have slow times, they provide good jobs, Orlowski said. “It’s a decent living,” he said. “People who enter the trades have everything to look forward to in being able to raise a family.”
And so, with positive job prospects, each year Davea students will continue to raise roofs.
