Carpentry Renovation Techniques

Framing a wall, cutting a set of rafters and hanging a door that swings true are skills you can learn in 28 weeks. Carpentry Renovation Techniques is a one-year Ontario College Certificate of two semesters, taught full time in the carpentry shop at Cambrian College’s Barrydowne campus in Sudbury.

Semester one covers Estimating and Calculations I, Surveying & Form Layout I, Floor and Wall Framing I, Roof Framing I, Tools Materials and Safety and College Communications. In semester two you take Plans, Specifications and Code I, Exterior Applications, Interior Applications and Residential Interior and Exterior Finishes, plus a General Education course. Together these courses teach you to take off material quantities, lay out footings and forms, frame floors, walls and roofs, read residential drawings against the building code and install siding, trim, drywall and interior finishes.

Cambrian runs this certificate as shop-based learning with capped enrolment, so most of your time is spent building interior and exterior application projects with hand and power tools under instructor supervision. Safe work practice and hazard identification start in Tools Materials and Safety and carry through every project, and building codes are studied in Plans, Specifications and Code I. The certificate counts as one level toward a carpentry apprenticeship Certificate of Qualification, and graduates can pursue membership in the carpenters’ union.

Graduates of Carpentry Renovation Techniques start as carpenter apprentice, framer, renovation carpenter, finish carpentry helper, form setter and self-employed renovator in residential and commercial construction. It suits people who like working with their hands, can handle outdoor and physical work in all seasons and want to be job-ready in the construction trades quickly.