School roofs: When will they be fixed? – Burlington Times News

Jessica Williams jessicawtn

The Alamance-Burlington School System is close to settling a lawsuit with Dow Chemical, and replacing the leaking roofs that have been a topic of conversation all summer.

Some background:

J.P. Stevens Roofing, which was bought by Dow in 2008, installed six roofs for ABSS in 2005 at Sellars-Gunn Educational Center, E.M. Holt Elementary School, Graham and Broadview middle schools, and two at Cummings High School under a 15-year warranty.

For the past year, major leaks have appeared in these roofs, and now its gotten to the point where four out of the six need to be fully replaced.

Why are the roofs leaking?

Assistant Superintendent for Operations Todd Thorpe says its a materials issue.

A TPO roof has foam insulation, and then it has, for lack of a better word, a piece of white plastic thats really heavy, he explained. Forty-five mil is what we have. If we do it again, I want to go back to 60 mil, which means it will be a heavier roof. So the roof has a layer of plastic and then a screen wire and then another layer of plastic. It should have enough UV protection that the sun doesnt disturb the material, but if we went on the roof and looked, youd see where the top layer of plastic is disintegrating, so were losing layers like that.

Broadview and Cummings have had the worst leaks because the roofs arent shaded by trees, thus theyve been exposed to more harmful UV rays than other facilities.

Graham Middle School is next on that list, but E.M. Holt and Sellars-Gunn are shaded enough to buy them another year or two.

What is ABSS doing about it?

Engineers and attorneys have walked the roofs, pictures have been taken, and core samples have been done by the engineering firms.

Until a settlement is reached with Dow something Thorpe hopes will come in the next few weeks the school system has been approved to patch the roofs at Broadview, Cummings and Graham with a heavy top coating, and replace ceiling tiles under a cap of $20,000.

We know its a temporary fix, but its a fix to get kids back in school, Thorpe said.

In the meantime, planning has already begun for how to swing replacing the worst damaged roofs at Broadview and Cummings this year while students are in school.

These roofs are not residential roofs. With a residential roof, you call somebody, they show up in a week, and three days later theyre finished, Thorpe said. We go through a much more complex procedure. There will be an engineer drawing, it will go out for bids, specs will have to be laid out. Once we get the funding and we can get started, its probably going to be three months, and thats if the weather cooperates with us.

The cost is quite a bit different from residential roof replacement as well.

Broadview alone will cost around $550,000, and new roofs for all five facilities are expected to cost more than $2 million which is why the much-anticipated lawsuit settlement price tag is important.

Once the lawsuit is resolved, Thorpe hopes to be able to present to the Board of Education in September and get the ball rolling as soon as possible.

Reporter Jessica Williams can be reached at jessica.williams@thetimesnews.com or at 336-506-3046. Follow her on Twitter at @jessicawtn.

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School roofs: When will they be fixed? - Burlington Times News