How Many People Does it Take to Build a House?

Take a look at this picture. How many people do you think it took to make this house?

For one, it took a great architect! But aside from that, it required a fair amount of wood to build. But getting wood to build a house isn’t just as simple as taking a trip to Home Depot. There are a lot of people involved in turning these:

into this:

Not all houses look woody from the outside, but most houses are built with a wood frame. This means we need a lot of wood.

The first step is accessing the resource (wood). But we can’t do that without first assessing the impact this will have on the forest. This is why we have Foresters and Forest Technologists. These outdoors people combine nature walks with advanced computer programs and equipment to ensure a balance between human needs and the needs of a thriving forest ecosystem.

Foresters and Forest Technologists are responsible for making plans that go up to 200 years in the future to ensure we are managing our forests sustainably.

Once the foresters have determined how much (and where) we can harvest, we need equipment operators to harvest the trees.

And then truck drivers to hall the harvested trees.

Not only do we need a variety of skilled people to locate and gather the wood, but we also need several sets of knowledge to turn that wood into lumber and engineered products like oriented strand board (OSB) so we can build a structurally sound final product.

For example, engineers design products and machinery. They also implement efficient processes in the mills.

Tradespeople are critical to the smooth operation of forestry mills, ensuring machinery is regularly maintained and repaired.

Control room operators run the machinery and monitor production.

And production labourers are responsible for a number of tasks such as moving materials and clean-up.

Once the raw material (wood) has been turned into building material (lumber and engineered boards), we need more tradespeople, engineers, and labourers as well as contractors, architects, and many more people to turn the building material into a livable home.

And then of course, we need tree planters to go to the harvest site and plant new trees so that the cycle can start over again.

So, how many people does it take to build a house? Too many to count! And that’s great news for job-seekers in Alberta.

If you want to learn more about the variety of jobs that go into making forest products, have a look at our 53 career profiles.