Student-built house in Walkersville nearing finish line

Oct. 7—In November 2019, Diego Ramirez was a sophomore, and the lot on Fulton Avenue in Walkersville was empty.

Now, Ramirez is a senior, preparing to graduate from Tuscarora High School and take classes in construction management at Frederick Community College. And on that empty lot, there now stands an 1,800-square-foot house that's nearing completion.

Ramirez and fellow Career and Technology Center students helped lay the foundation of the structure, which represents the program's 33rd student-built home. After years of hard work and a monthslong stretch of pandemic-induced delays, staff expect the house to be ready for occupation by spring.

"I feel really proud of what I've been able to do with my classmates," Ramirez said Wednesday, leaning against an unfinished wall and raising his voice above a cacophony of banging hammers and buzzing saws.

Frederick County Public Schools has supported student house projects since 1978. Jim Thuman, a carpentry instructor at CTC, has overseen work on the most recent four.

The builds provide opportunities for students of carpentry, electricity, plumbing, HVAC and landscaping to get hands-on experience, Thuman said. It's a lot more valuable than a classroom lecture would be.

Typically, Thuman added, labor laws bar construction students from getting experience on a job site before they're 18.

"You need experience. That's the biggest thing in getting a job. It doesn't matter how much education you have," Thuman said. "When they go in for a job, they can say, 'Yes, I have installed trusses,' or 'I built the house from the ground up.'"

Thuman joked with his students on Wednesday as he showed them how to apply siding to the outside of the house. He pointed to printed markings on the walls that indicated where each of their nails should go.

"This industry has made everything idiot-proof," he said. "Or tried to."

Most school days, students are bussed from CTC — located right next to FCC's campus — out to the job site in Walkersville. Instructors choose lots that aren't too far from the city since students only have a couple of hours in their day to travel to the site, work and travel back.

When the home is sold, Thuman said, he'll use the profits to begin looking for a new vacant lot for a future student project. But as Frederick develops and grows, he said, empty spaces are getting much harder to come by.

"How many lots are left within a 10- to 15-minute radius of FCC?" he asked. "Not a whole lot — if any. So going forward, we're looking at, what are we going to do?"

CTC has secured lots for the next two projects, Thuman said. Both are located on 13th Street in Frederick, near Gov. Thomas Johnson High School. But after that, things are up in the air.

Unlike Ramirez, who has been on the site since the groundbreaking, Oakdale High School students Asher Payne and Peter Goggin are new to the project. They're both first-year carpentry students, and they said traveling to the house has cemented their desire to pursue trade work.

"It feels real, being out here," said Payne, a sophomore. "It's not like book work."

Once complete, the single-family home — which has to endure the same inspections process as any other dwelling — will have a first-floor master bedroom with a walk-in closet and bathroom. Goggin and Payne worked on installing the beginnings of a shelving unit in the master closet Wednesday.

Later this week, Thuman said, students will begin standing up walls for the detached two-car garage.

For about six months in 2020, the house sat untouched, covered with tarps. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the students had to halt their work.

Eventually, Ramirez and some of his classmates organized "Saturday work trips" out to the site. They'd work from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. in small groups to ensure social distancing.

"That's what really pushed this house along," Ramirez said.

In addition to the value of hands-on experience, Thuman said, the house projects help students understand the tangible results of their work.

"They can actually come 30 years from now," he said, "and the house will still be here."

Follow Jillian Atelsek on Twitter: @jillian_atelsek