Educators at the Chateauguay Valley Career Education Centre (CECVC) in Ormstown, QC wanted to offer their students something beyond the standard skills they would get from most schools, so instead of building small sheds or wall sections that would be later disassembled, they decided to build an actual house. Beyond that, they wanted it to hit the highest possible level of LEED certification (Platinum), and finally - give it to a family in need through the charity Habitat for Humanity.

If all that wasn't challenging enough, add to it the fact that Quebec union laws prevent students from working on an actual construction site. Therefore, it had to be prefabricated at the school in a modular design that could be transported by truck to its final location.

The video below is the final episode in a series that documented the entire process, starting with concept and design, through all the construction steps, and finally the delivery and installation. We were honoured to be part of this project and hope that this inspires similar projects at other schools in the future.

 

 Below is a small sampling of images (courtesy of JHCarpentry) that can be found on the blog of teacher John Hodges who documented the project from its inception. And here is episode 1 of the video series, back 4 years ago when this was only going to take 1 year :).

An untold amount of hurdles presented themselves along the way, so congratulations to the entire team at the CVCEC for the vision, determination and patience that was needed to bring this project to fruition.

LEED Platinum prefab home
 
LEED Platinum prefab home
 

 

LEED Platinum prefab home
 

 

LEED Platinum prefab home
 

 

Leed Platinum prefab