Carpentry department rebuilds homes

The Carpentry Department at Laney College has been working with the City of Oakland on a project to rebuild a house on 453 98th Ave. by the end of 2015.
The Carpentry Department has a long history with the City of Oakland and has worked with them to refurbish many houses, which will be sold to low to moderate income families. 
Currently the department is working on rebuilding a burnt out crack house that was damaged in a fire. Although the department has previously rebuilt many house, this particular house they are currently working on is special. 
“For the first time, this is the first house in Oakland that is being built to Passive House Standards” said Cynthia Correia, a long time instructor in the Carpentry Department and current department chair. 
She has been with the department for 25 years and has been a part of 12 housing rebuilds. Correia went on to explain that a Passive House Standard house is a very sustainable house that is extremely energy efficient, super insulated and air tight. 
The house will not even possess a furnace. Instead it will use a whole house heat recovery ventilation system. This house will serve as an experiment for this type of sustainable home in the city of Oakland. 
 The current building project, that has been in progress since last fall, has been worked on by students in classes throughout the entire department. These housing rebuild projects aim to help Laney students get on hand experience and gain building performance. Experience that will transcend into vital knowledge for work at future job sites and throughout daily life. 
Students are in the process of framing and putting the roof on. “We will continue all the way to finish. Meaning we’ll do the bathrooms, kitchens, put in tile and put in flooring” said Correia. 
These building projects teach students from different classes throughout the department to come together and work as a team to complete the refurbishing. Classes that teach how to build a specific part of a building work on that section in the project. For example, if you’re in stair building you’ll work on the stairs. This semester, there is no roof building being offered, so everyone collectively will work on building the roof for this project. 
When the Carpentry Department finishes one of these housing projects, the City of Oakland sells it to a low to moderate income family. The way that a family is chosen to purchase the newly refurbished house is through a lottery that families can sign up for. 
The money that the Carpentry Department receives from selling the house rolls over and gets recycled back into their next project. The estimation for time of completion on the current housing rebuild project is by the end of 2015.