GREENSBORO, NC (WGHP) — There is a lot that goes into building a home.
The carpentry students at Grimsley High School are learning it doesn’t matter the size of the home; there is much to be done. The walls are up, the windows are in, and more of the final touches are underway on the tiny house they are building on the school grounds.
“Learning how to build a house. I had no experience about it whatsoever,” senior Machaias Frazier said. But now he and his classmates are learning more about the construction industry every day. It’s hands-on learning at its best.
The kind carpentry teacher Tim Hensley says his students crave. “Most of these kids today are like that,” says Hensley. “They don’t like sitting in the classroom all the time. When they get to come out and put their hands on things and work with it and have a finished product at the end of it, it’s really amazing to them.”
The students started building this house from the ground up in October. And according to Hensley, they are learning a lot.
“They learn all aspects of the building trade, all aspects of the electrical trade. They learn where they can apply this in real life. They learn how to place the studs, how to calculate loads, how to figure concrete, and how to figure your circuit amp capacity. Everything about what a general contractor does on the site,” he says.
The work is so eye-opening Frazier says he’s now considering a career in the field. “I really like that. Ever since I came to this class, I like doing hands-on stuff. That’s what I really like.”
The house will be donated to the Tiny House Community Development when it’s complete. And it serves an important purpose. “These will be taking homeless people off the streets, homeless veterans, off the streets, and giving them opportunities to adapt back in society where they can be productive citizens,” Hensley said.
“It feels really good because there’s a lot of homeless and then you think I could be building a house for this person…” Frazier said.
It’s a win-win situation for all and it helps to focus on a need in our nation today. “These trades right here are very, very important nowadays,” Hensley says. “There’s about a 10-to-one ratio now of people getting out of the trade for everyone going into it. And they’re at a rate right now, that they need bodies to fill. And most of these companies will start kids out close to $40,000 right out the door of high school.”
Two other high schools, Weaver Academy and Southern Guilford are also building tiny houses. While this is a high school class, it’s a career in the making.
