‘Green’ Sinawik house to host BBQ

    Rowell and Sandy McHatten of Mapleton are asking the Aroostook County community to come visit their new retirement home and share a bite to eat on Tuesday, April 29 at 11:30 a.m.     It’s an open house with a twist, as the McHatten’s soon-to-be-completed 1,248 square foot, modular ranch-style home sits in two pieces inside the residential construction laboratory at Northern Maine Community College.
    It is there where more than four dozen students and their instructors in five trade and technical occupation programs have spent the past six months making the dream home become a reality, and at the same time getting a hands-on learning experience unlike any other.
    For over three decades, the College and Sinawik (Kiwanis spelled backward), a non-profit organization founded by the Presque Isle civic organization, have partnered to build a home each year that is contracted by, and sold to, an Aroostook County family.
    With work on the 31st home nearing completion, the College and Kiwanis Club are hosting a community open house celebration and barbecue in the Mailman Trades Building, where the work of the students and the importance of the partnership between NMCC and Kiwanis on the home building project will be recognized.
    “This project has been a win-win for both the College and Kiwanis Club,” said Guy Jackson, NMCC’s residential construction instructor, who has been key to the project for the past 27 years. “Over the years, hundreds of students have had the opportunity to work directly on the construction of a house that is placed in the local community and becomes a home for an area family. It has been an excellent teaching tool and great source of pride for both our students and for us as faculty. We are looking forward to welcoming the community as they join us to celebrate the construction of the latest Sinawik home.”
    The April 29 event will include tours of the new home and an indoor barbecue, as well as the presentation of scholarships from Kiwanis to five students enrolled in the College programs that work on the structure.
     In fact, the 31st Sinawik will be the “greenest” home completed through the NMCC-Kiwanis partnership. Among the features of the structure is radiant floor heating and window placement, which has been designed to take advantage of passive solar gain. As is always the case, extra care has been taken during construction to seal all penetrations in air and vapor barriers.
    Constructing an energy efficient home was the goal of owner Rowell McHatten, who plans, once the foundation is laid and the structure placed on-site in Castle Hill, to install a state-of-the art heating system that will attach to solar panels he will place on the roof that will heat the water for his new home.
    For more information on the project or the open house, contact the college relations office at 768-2809.