Reopened school to get partial roof replacement
The Richmond (Va.) district is replacing parts of the roof at a building that has been called into emergency service after a fire shut down an elementary campus.
The Richmond board has approved a plan to upgrade portions of the roof at the former Clark Springs Elementary School, which closed in 2014. The district had to reopen the campus earlier this year to accommodate students displaced from Fox Elementary, which was extensively damaged by a three-alarm fire in February.
As the district prepared to reopen Clark Springs, it found several problems with the roof, including splits in the roof membrane, puncture holes and moisture in the insulation. The district spent more than $11,000 to address those problems, but a roofing contractor said those problems would recur until the roof in those sections was replaced.
Replacing the entire roof would cost about $1.5 million, but the work would not be completed in time for the beginning of the 2022-23 school year. Replacing only the sections identified by the contractor as problems would cost $600,000 and could be completed during the summer. So Superintendent Jason Kamras recommended, and the board agreed to the partial roof replacement.
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New roof at Tennessee high school will cost $3.9 million
The Tullahoma City (Tenn.) school board has agreed to spend $3.9 million on a total replacement of the 65-year-old roof at its high school.
The board acted in response to a 2021 assessment by a consultant, The Tullahoma News reported. Because of the age of the roof and several problems uncovered, the consultant advised the district to replace the high school roof in the near future. In addition, the company providing HVAC services to the district also reported that the high school roof had numerous trouble spots and would soon need to be replaced.
District officials also reported that the high school has had to deal several times with roof leaks; continuing to patch and repair individual leaks was no longer feasible.
The district says it will pay for the roof replacement with federal Covid relief funds. The work is expected to take up to six months.
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Pennsylvania district fast-tracks roof replacement at high/middle school complex
The Crawford Central (Pa.) school district has spent $6.05 million to replace the roofs at a senior high-middle school campus in Meadville.
The Meadville Tribune reports that the roof replacement approved in January 2021 for the Meadville Area Senior High-Meadville Area Middle School complex was supposed to be a two-year project. But the construction company that won the bid for the project proposed adding a second shift during summer 2021 so it could complete the work in half the time.
Matthew Tarr, the district’s director of buildings, grounds and transportation, said removal of the roofing and installation of the new roof have been completed, but finishing touches are continuing. The remaining work involves "cosmetic" trim work.
The decision to speed up the project "went quite well," Tarr said. "If the weather would have held out for us, we would have been completely finished."
