Burn that Thermal Bridge: High School Construction Students Continue their Green Journey

Wrenshall High School students have installed windows, continuous insulation and steel roofing on their high performance shed. These are important steps: windows and continuous insulation are crucial elements of the shed’s comfort and performance, and the newly installed corrugated red roof is starting to show the shed’s playful look.

While installing the continuous insulation, students – and their teacher - gained experience in indispensable high performance building skills. They now have practiced planning for additional layers of insulation, fastening insulation that is exterior to the structure, and integrating the insulation with the air control and water management layers.

During our most recent visit to Wrenshall School, building professional Randy Williams was teaching students how to flash the doorway and install the water resistive barrier (WRB) over the continuous insulation. Best of all, the students are taking their work seriously: teacher Chris Gustafson reports he heard them saying “Randy’s going to be coming in, we need to get our work done!”

We’re grateful to Rockwool, Huber Engineered Woods, Andersen Windows, and Dakota Steel for generously donating the cavity insulation, continuous insulation, windows and roofing material (respectively) for this project. We believe it is important for students to work with beautiful, high-quality materials that are common in the industry, not only for their technical skills but also for their inspiration.

We look forward to seeing the students finish the sheds next semester using Richlite, thermally modified Southern Yellow Pine and Plyboo bamboo plywood, donated by Intectural. And we look forward to the powerful experience of watching the students learn about renewable energy when John Goeke, the electrician/solar expert, comes back to install the solar PV system.

This project was made possible with funding from the Northeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships through UMN Extension.