Newest BCTC student-built house ready to go on the market
Situated along Friedensberg Road in Oley Township, at the entrance to a short street that ends in a cul-de-sac, is a brand-new twostory house.
It’s a three-bedroom, two-and-ahalf bathroom home, with an open floor plan downstairs and plenty of closet space throughout. In many ways it’s a lot like other newly-built, suburban homes across Berks County. But in one big way it’s not. The house wasn’t built by a professional construction crew. Instead, it was completely prepared by students at Berks Career and Technology Center.
“Everything you see here is student built,” said Mike Kern, masonry instructor and house program coordinator. “The flooring, the cabinets, they did it all.”
The career and technology center has kept up a practice many other schools have thrown by the wayside. Each year, students in the construction trades get a chance to work on a real job site and experience what it’s like to build a house.
The home at 8 Career Court, which was recently finished, is the 10th students at the school have built. It will be listed for bid in the next few weeks, with a minimum price set at $350,000. the bids are set to be opened on July 20.
Each house takes two to three years to build. Work on the next one, three doors up from 8 Career Court, has already begun, and school officials said they have about a dozen more lots in the area to build on.
Kern said each year about 200 students work the school’s current student-built house, learning first hand how a real job site works.
They have to coordinate with other students, make cost estimations and make deadline, just like they will when they’re working construction jobs.
They also have to work in the elements.
“That’s totally different, you work differently in the cold than you do when it’s hot,” Kern said. “That’s something we can’t teach in the shop.”
The students who worked on the 8 Career Court house said they appreciated getting the unique opportunity.
“It was great,” said Scott Moyer, 18, a carpentry student who recently graduated from Twin Valley High School. “You learn a lot in the shop, but it’s a totally different atmosphere when you’re here. And there’s just such a variety in what you get to do.”
Moyer said his favorite part of the project was working on the hardwood flooring on the first floor.
“It’s kind of like putting a puzzle together,” he said.
Adam Loeper, 19, an adult student in the masonry program, called the studentbuilt house project “ambitious,” adding that he was thrilled to be able to be a part of it.
“You’re building something that’s going to stand the test of time and that someone is going to live in,” he said.