Anyone who watches the HGTV channel has undoubtedly seen an episode or a commercial for “Tiny House Builders”.
The trend is becoming so popular that Orleans Career and Technical Education Center Building Trades teacher Matt Anastasi has been having his students work on constructing one in class. “We built one last year and put it out to bid and we had someone call us and ask that if he provided the material, would the class build him one to his specifications. It was a unique situation for us because he brought in the material and the trailer he wanted it built on.”
Tiny homes are generally under 1,000 square feet and stem from an architectural and social movement for people desiring to live more simple lives and leave less of a carbon footprint. Mr. Anastasi and his students made modifications to the original blueprint to accommodate the customer’s requirements for custom windows, cedar shake shingles, metal roofing and a tankless hot water heater. The students even made a customized shower using a galvanized washing machine pan that they had to retrofit for a center drain and a set of stairs so that he could access his electric service panel and storage.
Bill Leggett’s Electricity/Electronics students at the Orleans/Niagara BOCES’ center helped with the electrical wiring of the house and his class would coordinate with the Building Trades class, so they could work on different parts of the house at the same time. “The project was a great way for my students to grasp many different aspects of building a house, but on a much smaller scale,” says Mr. Anastasi. “It also helped with their ability to customize projects to meet the customers’ needs and it was great that the students got to interact with the customer to discuss the design and the building of the project.”
Mr. Anastasi said his students became big fans of the show and would come in and talk about the episode they watched and suggest some of the things they saw on the show. “They were very excited about working on the tiny house and very proud of what they accomplished. The customer loved it and could not thank us enough. He is so excited to live and travel in it.”
(LtoR) Luke Sharpe (Newfane/Building Trades), Dan Wheeler (Royalton Hartland/Electricity), Tyler Burdick (Royalton Hartland/Building Trades, Matt Pisarski (Royalton Hartland/Building Trades), Becca Fry (Royalton Hartland/Building Trades), Adam Mikoll (Royalton Hartland/Building Trades), Tyler Sattleburg (Royalton Hartland/Electricity), Quinn Moreland (Royalton Hartland/Electricity), Darius Ruiz- (Lockport/Building Trades), Dylan Burtch (Lockport/Building Trades), Jesse Wilcox (Royalton Hartland/Building Trades), Russell Larsen II (Barker/Building Trades), Not Pictured -Chelsea Cloutier (Newfane/Electricity).
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