Local students construct solar-powered tiny house

JACKSON, Tenn. — One home is getting closer to being finished with each school day.

“This is the tiny house at South Side,” said South Side High School teacher Bob Gordon. “It was made part by a grant from the Department of Innovation, a new thing to Jackson-Madison County Schools. And it gave us the opportunity to build this and then when we get done, we’re gonna sell it and all the proceeds come back to our classroom.”

“Getting to work on something with your friends and Mr. Gordon teaching you how to actually build something, and we goof off a lot, but we get some work done at the same time,” said 10th grade student Kaden Harris.

The tiny house will hold a full size shower, stackable washer and dryer, two sinks, and solar powered batteries.

“In order to keep the batteries the same temperature, you actually have to heat this area and cool this area,” Gordon said. “So there will be vents under here. And in the wintertime you’ll turn the heater on in here, and then heat will radiate through the floor of the living room and the bathroom and warm that floor.”

“[What] I’ve learned is definitely plumbing and wiring stuff,” said 11th grader Weston Blankenship. “That’s stuff that I didn’t even know how to do as much, I knew a little bit about what I saw people do. But when I started you know, working on this, we learned a lot about stuff like that, and I put shutters on and all kinds of other stuff like that. Stuff that I haven’t haven’t done but this has given me the chance to gain that experience to have.”

The students all seemed to be in unity on this one aspect of building this project.

“We’re grateful to have a teacher like Mr. Gordon to come out here every day, you know, to show us how to do all this stuff,” Blankenship said. “And pass on some of his knowledge to how to work and do stuff like this, is stuff I’ll remember how to do for the rest of our lives.”

With the majority of the tiny house completed, the project is expected to be complete at the end of the semester.

“I’m happy it’s almost finished because I’m kind of ready to start something else,” said Harris.

Gordon shared the next project involves a similar idea to a tiny home, but this time the starting point will be from a shipping container instead of starting from scratch.

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