Building and Trades home project is taking shape

The new home being constructed as part of the Red Oak Community School District’s building and trades program is making progress.
A dedicated housing committee, including Randy Orme and Ryan Beeson as co-chairs, along with Jeff Soe, John O’Neal, Bryant Blay, Nathan Perrien, Ron Lorenz, and Elaine Carlson, has been established to oversee the project. Construction on the home is taking place at 2907 N. 4th St. with six students who have received their OSHA certification. Students participating in the class are: Adam Baier, Seth Baucom, Brody Bond, Aaron “AJ” Henderson, Nolan Perrien, and Kyler Sandholm.
Southwestern Community College is serving as the general contractor, and the class is being led by new building and trades instructor Joe Nenneman.
“This is my first year, and I’m also a contractor myself. I’ve got a construction company right here in Red Oak,” said Nenneman.
Nenneman said he was drawn to the position thanks to community interest in the building and trades program returning.
“We actually had some folks in the community reach out to me about restarting this program. We had the program for a while before then. There’s actually a lot of people in this community that used to participate in that,” explained Nenneman. “I believe it was COVID-19 that slowed it down or shut it down. But, over in Creston, they do this and have continued to do the program, so they wanted to get it going again here. Some folks in the community reached out and asked if I’d be interested in doing it. And, that’s the way it worked out. I went down and we talked about the project and talked about the college’s goals and the community’s goals.”
Nenneman said SWCC is working in partnership with the Red Oak Chamber and Industry Association to get the program up and running, as it is hoped the class will draw youth in the area into trade skills learning. Once things were finalized, Nenneman said the next key step was planning the project.
“We went through a process of getting plans, picking a house design, talking through what the construction costs would be, getting a bill of material together so that we knew what the true build costs would be,” advised Nenneman. “After that, everyone came to an agreement on the house design. And, when we started at the beginning of this year, I brought the kids out here and we laid out exactly where the house was going to be, shot elevations, and did earthwork. And we’ve just been kind of rolling along ever since. We started up in September.”
Framing of the house has taken place for about five weeks, as time is running out before the winter.
“Everybody pushes for that. We want to be dried in before the snow flies. With Thanksgiving break and Christmas break, we’ve essentially got four weeks left of work before Christmas break. And, we need to have the roof on, windows in, doors in, so that our other trades, like the plumber, electrician, and Heartland Foam Insealators can do interior work. Scott Allensworth is taking care of all the ducting and whatnot,” Nenneman advised. “With these kids, we sat down and I taught them the planning and estimating portion of things and figuring out duration days and man days and crew size, things of that nature. We just sat down together and came up with a project schedule and figured out what our true duration was going to be for the project. And, we set up milestones and goals and what have you.”
Amazingly, Nenneman said none of the kids enrolled in the class has any real carpentry experience.
“Not a single one of these kids had ever swung a hammer before. None of them knew what a speed square was. None of them knew any of this stuff. It’s pretty crazy to watch them, over the last five weeks, actually learn and apply the knowledge that was new to them at the beginning of the school year. They’ve got the tools figured out and how to use them and no one has gotten hurt at all,” Nenneman said.
If the exterior is done by Christmas break, other trades will be able to do what they need on the inside, and plans are for sheetrock to be installed after Christmas break. Nenneman said it will be a nice home for a family once completed.
“It’s a little over 1,500 square feet, with three bedrooms and two baths. It’s got an attached garage and it will have an 18 foot wide garage door. It’s a true two car garage with plenty of room all the way around. The house is slab on grade. And, it is a single story. So, we put a storm shelter in the mechanical room where the washer and dryer is going to be.  So, that is full poured nine and a quarter inch thick concrete structure inside this house. Through the process of planning this project, no one skimped out on anything. It’s a pretty top-end project as far as what we’re trying to achieve for the type of potential buyer that we could have. This is going to be an outstanding first home or last home for whoever buys it.”
While the duration of the project on paper is 86 days, Nenneman said he’s not in a rush to hurry the project and put the kids at a disadvantage.
“If I push these kids and try to achieve 86 days like we’re home builders, we’re going to miss out on a lot of learning opportunity, and, quite frankly, it will come across as a blur in their memory. So, we’re going to slow things down. They have until the end of the school year. And we’d like to be maybe March that we would like to be ready to really get some potential buyers to walk through. That is our personal goal. We want to be able to actually showcase this come March, when that springtime flips around and people start looking at moving and stuff like that. They can come look at this as a potential opportunity for them,” stated Nenneman.
Nenneman added it’s a wonderful feeling to watch the kids grow in a field that sometimes threatens to be shrinking.
“This is kind of an odd niche. With my company, I essentially do the same thing. I find guys that just didn’t want to go work behind a desk, and wanted to learn something. This realm of training and teaching has been something that I’ve been pretty experienced with for a while now. But it’s extremely encouraging to have 18-year-old kids out here still participating. Every one of these kids is very active in the community. These are great kids. They’ve got a great attitude,” commented Nenneman. “Everyone that asks me about it says it’s got to be tough, but every one of these kids shows up. They’re happy, giggling, having fun, get their gear on, and we get started. And, I mean, you look at what we’ve been doing, setting trusses, putting up a new structural header. I mean, there’s nine tools that are used for that, and these kids five weeks ago didn’t even know what they were called. It’s just super humbling and awesome being able to watch these kids do this stuff,” Nenneman said.
The skills the kids learn will also be able to help them as they branch out of school and enter into adulthood.
“You start to think about the value of somebody that can receive a phone call and be there to help because they took the time in their early years to learn a life skill like this, understanding how to frame something, being able to look at construction as a whole and be able to judge whether or not what they’re seeing is accurate or not, and also being able to help with coming up with a plan to create a solution for someone who wants a construction project done. You know, it’s paramount. You really need to be able to at least know the basics of construction. You need to understand names of tools. You need to be able to plan a project efficiently. I think when folks don’t do that, complacency sets in, standards reduce,” Nenneman advised. “If you don’t know what you’re looking at, how can you hold somebody else accountable? “These kids are actively seeking that, and they’re doing a good job.”
Nenneman expressed his appreciation to several organizations and entities for helping bring the class back into the fold.
“The Red Oak Chamber, the Red Oak School District, and SWCC in general have really come together in a big way on a large and small scale scale, Scott Allsworth and Scott Bruce also jumped at the opportunity to help. They didn’t even have to be asked to have their guys out here, or their equipment out here to help out and show the kids some elements of construction. To have had these guys out here showing these kids how to rig these trusses and explaining to them what they do and how they do it and showing a more efficient but different way of doing things is awesome. Every one of the subcontractors down to the mason has been very willing and able to say, ‘hey, kids, this is why we do it this way. This is why we look at things this way. These are the tools we need and this how we take care of them.’”