A roofer by trade, Chris Ortiz spends long days at construction sites.

Lately, instead of always heading home at quitting time, Ortiz attends an evening class on vintage wood window repair at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology.

The class is offered through a partnership between the school and several Lancaster County agencies.

"I have kids at home," Ortiz said. "It's time to get off the roof and get inside, where it's warm in the winter."

Last year, Thaddeus Stevens partnered with representatives from the Lancaster County Planning Commission, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg Area Community College and the Lancaster County Career and Technology Center to offer the class.

The intent is to train more people who can preserve the county's architectural heritage.

Scott Sheely, director of the county's Workforce Investment Board, said the county needs people who specialize in such work.

"We felt this was a legitimate use of dollars to help upgrade training in the construction and remodeling industry," Sheely said.

Charlie Byers, a carpentry instructor at Thaddeus Stevens and project supervisor, agreed. "If we don't have anyone to fix the historical buildings that surround the infrastructure of the city and eliminate the decay and deterioration, we will have beautiful roads, a beautiful convention center, but without the beautiful buildings that have been here for a long time," he said.

All 22 students enrolled in the class have jobs in carpentry. Prior to the wood window repair class, they took a general wood repair class.

Both courses consist of six three-hour classes. Once students complete the second course, they will be certified in wood preservation and repair.

Byers said the school recruited the students by sending out surveys to contractors belonging to the Building Industry Association Remodeling Council.

The cost of each course would have been $475, but through a $9,500 grant from the planning commission and contributions from the Workforce Investment Board, that price was lowered to $190.

Byers said preserving older buildings can ease the pressure to build new ones.

"New home construction is limited to the availability of land and the number of builders and developers that are in the business," Byers said.

The repair classes are not yet part of Thaddeus Stevens' regular curriculum, but they will be offered soon, along with masonry restoration, porch repair and door and stair repair, according to Byers.

John Fugelso, a retired museum preservationist who teaches the window repair class with Byers, said the students are working on donated windows from the mid-1850s.

Fugelso said repairing a vintage window is typically a two-day process that involves replacing rotting wood with an epoxy wood filler.

Fugelso said it's important to pass on wood preservation skills, because material like vinyl, which is widely used in replacement window frames, doesn't last.

"We know these (historic) windows can last 100 years," Fugelso said. "If we restore them, we know they will last another 100 years."

Student Joe Thomas, who has owned his own remodeling company since 1988, enrolled in the classes because he wants to gear his business toward restoration work.

"I used to be a slumlord and always had to do repair work," Thomas said. "It's something I've always liked to do. I like the challenge of returning something to what it was originally and trying to save the sash and glass."

E-mail: mpennino@lnpnews.com