Crews repair failed tile work at State Capitol

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Visitor to Utahs State Capitol over the next year might see signs of major construction work as crews fix faulty tile work throughout the building.

Officials say the mortar mixture used with the tile work six years ago appears to have failed, causing many tiles to shift and come loose.

After the legislative session ended in mid-March, crews began working to replace 60,000 square feet of tiny tiles throughout the building, The Deseret News reported (http://bit.ly/1jIfSSe ).

The work, which wont be completed until the end of 2015, is being paid for with a$4.4 million insurance settlement and an additional undisclosed amount of money from the construction companies that did the original job in 2008.

That tile work, part of a $250 million restoration to the building, was supposed to last for 50 years.

But soon after the work was complete, visitors began reporting that many of the small tiles throughout the marble and granite building appeared to be shifting, said Allyson Gamble, the executive director of the Capitol Preservation Board.

People were coming in saying they saw a tile that looked loose or popped up, Gamble said.

The 2008 work was done by a subcontractor hired by two construction firms, Jacobsen Construction and Hunt Construction Group, Jacobsens senior vice president Terry Wright said.

Wright said that subcontractor has since gone out of business and the two constructions firms are now paying for any costs not covered by the insurance settlement. He declined to reveal the cost to the firms.

The tile being ripped out cannot be reused, Wright said, so new tiles are being ordered from a Pennsylvania company to match those in place when the building was dedicated in 1916.

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Crews repair failed tile work at State Capitol