Inspecting the Roofs

I spent a good part of Wednesday inspecting roofs in the city, particularly at the Tilton School.

We heard a good deal about school roofs at the city council meeting on Tuesday night, so I wanted to see for myself.

I went out during the height of the rainstorm, when you would expect to fund roofs throughout the city leaking.  Here is what I found.

At the citizen's center, the roof was leaking.  Vincent Ouellette, citizen's center director, had pumps placed on the flat roof to pump water way from the leaking areas, and the leaking stopped.

At the Tilton School, I found 27 out of the 29 classrooms, during the height of the storm, were dry.  The library, which had leaked a couple of years ago, was dry.  The corridors and hallways were dry on every floor.

In the one classroom that was the subject of so much concern at the city council, there was evidence that it had been leaking, but the city's fine maintenance people had fixed the problem, at least temporarily.

In one of the classrooms I found that the roof was leaking in one place, near one of the doors, and a bucket had been placed to collect the water.  The maintenance staff said they were working on it.

In another room, water was coming in around one of the windows, and was confined to a small area.  

I also found a dedicated, and overworked maintenance staff which was working hard to  fix the problems.   Although it was clearly not within their job description, I found four maintenance workers, including our city electrician, up on the flat roof shoveling snow off the roof.  

We have a roofing company on contract with the city, and they have been called.  They tell us that so far are they can tell right now, this is a solvable and manageable problem.  

I saw nothing at the school while I was there to indicate that there is any reason to panic, or to sound the alarm. 

I certainly saw nothing that caused me to believe in any way that this school is unsafe.  The maintenance staff checked for structural damage and found none.  The chimney, the subject of much discussion at the council meeting, was checked last year and judged to be safe.  The air quality was tested a year or so ago and found to be fine.  The electric wires, which one councilor said posed and immediate safety hazard, turned out to be computer cables and pose no danger.  

Right now, it appears to be confined to one, perhaps two,  small sections of the roof, and appears to be a manageable problem. 

However, we are awaiting a report from the roofing company before we know the full extent of the problem.  Do we need a new roof on all or a portion of the roof?  I did not see evidence  of this but I am not a roofer, so let's wait until we see the report.  

As I told the council on Tuesday, let's all take a deep breath, relax and wait for the report.  Our decisions should be based upon data, not emotion.  

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