Chris Pena is doing insulation work in what will be the garage of the spec house being built by Wawasee Building Trades.

SYRACUSE — Even with sophisticated equipment, weather forecasters can still fail to achieve absolute accuracy due to the unpredictable nature of the weather. So when building a house, especially in northern Indiana, and not starting until past the middle of August, staying on schedule is of prime importance in order to have the house closed in enough to work only inside during colder weather.

Wawasee Building Trades is dealing with this challenge yet again for this year’s project, a spec house on the corner of Syracuse-Webster Road and Cardinal Drive in Syracuse. Aaron McKinley, building trades instructor, said so far “we are on schedule.”

As of Thursday morning, Oct. 24, only installing the front door and garage door remained to have the house closed in enough to work on the inside during the winter months.

The spec house being built is on a lot owned by the Wawasee Community School Corporation for several years. This year the timing was better to build on the lot with a new building trades instructor and the location is easily within walking distance of the Wawasee High School campus.

McKinley noted the house will be ranch style and a little more than 1,700 square feet in size. It will have three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a two-car garage, a covered patio in the back and a partially covered porch and deck. There will be a finished basement, too, though building trades will not finish it but instead a contractor will.

And there will be a 10 foot high ceiling in the living room.

After spending time in the classroom the first five days of the school year, building trades students went to work on the house with the concrete foundation already laid by a contractor. They will eventually do most everything needed to complete the house including electrical work, framing, hanging drywall, insulating, roofing, windows, doors, siding, some of the interior finishing work and the plumbing. Heating work will be sub contracted, as well as some of the interior finishing work.

This is a transition year for Wawasee Building Trades. McKinley replaced longtime instructor Ed Waltz, who retired after more than 20 years at the end of the 2018-19 school year. McKinley said he used to work alone when doing construction jobs for his family’s business, so transitioning to teaching students has been “a big challenge.”

But he has considerable experience in construction work, particularly with remodeling and painting, and was a building trades student himself when at Warsaw Community High School. Waltz has stopped by periodically to check on the progress of the project and there are six second year students too.

Sometime during the spring the house will either be auctioned or placed on the market. There are 18 building trades students for the 2019-20 school year. Twelve work in the morning and six in the afternoon.

Two of the 18 are Columbia City High School students and the rest are Wawasee students.