Major school projects near completion

When schools are closed for summer, major projects get done. School maintenance workers, prison inmates, student workers, custodians and contractors have been busy at most of the county's schools, getting ready for the opening day on Tuesday, Aug. 25.

Maintenance workers have completely demolished the gym floor at Nebo Elementary School this month. The job is the latest in the ongoing effort to replace gym floors that have been ruined by moisture in recent years.

The floor had buckled noticeably, particularly beneath one of the basketball goals situated over the furnace boiler.

County schools' Maintenance Department worker Roy Dennie said it was most likely the moisture emanating from the boiler room that caused the damage. As a cost-saving measure, the floor had been installed over a substrate of compressed cinder and ash, rather than concrete.

The lack of adequate vapor barrier led to the saturation of the floor. The buckling was pronounced enough to make the floor unsuitable for basketball, as well as presenting a tripping hazard.

With the opening of traditional calendar schools only about four weeks away, Associate Superintendent Mike Murray said the push is on to complete several major repairs and improvements. He said there was no possibility the floor would be completed in time for the kids' return, due to the time needed for the concrete to cure.

"We will be starting the process of putting in a new gym floor (immediately after the demolition)," he stated. He added that the septic system at the school is also being updated.

"Getting all of our facilities ready to open up is our main focus right now and every custodian and maintenance employee has that goal in mind right now," said Murray.

Dennie said a contractor would move a machine into the gym to scrape up the substrate. Beneath the layer of cinder and ash is a layer of gravel, about 4 inches, then earth beneath that.

This will be replaced with a vapor barrier, concrete and another vapor barrier, he explained.

Upon that bed, the contractor will install a substrate of treated wood to which to attach the hardwood floor.

At July's School Board meeting Monday night, the contracts – one for the concrete and one for the wood -- were awarded to Stewart McKee and the Sports Flooring Group.

Murray remarked that the curing process of the substrate and the acclimatization of the wood material before it could be installed meant that the job could not possibly be completed before the students returned to school.

A similar project was completed last summer and fall at Glenwood Elementary.

"We completed Glenwood last year," he said. "Both of those floors were in bad shape. Nebo has had old nails coming up through the floor and our maintenance department was constantly repairing and monitoring it."

The recent refinishing of the floor at East Junior High has seen some damage since.

"(That floor) was refinished last year and should be in great shape," he stated. "We did have a steam pipe leak under the floor but that has been patched."

That floor is stable, he concluded, "and scheduled for more extensive repairs later in the year."

Murray reported to the board that the 20-year-old fire alarm system at West Marion Elementary had been replaced, seven schools had been painted and several classrooms at Old Fort Elementary had had their carpets removed, to be replaced with a hard surface, before the teachers return.

West Junior High and the high school had both seen some 40-year-old heat, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units replaced.

He said he had visited Old Fort in the past week and had been impressed and delighted at the consistently good work the prison inmate work crews do, both at Old Fort and generally around the schools.

He cited as an example the painting and murals the inmates had done at Eastfield in June (featured in The McDowell News on Monday, July 20).

"We are very thankful to our own maintenance department, custodians and building-level principals," he said, "and to the prisoners and prison system for their outstanding support."