The new entrance and hallway into the existing school is open and in use. It was completed around 7:00 Sunday PM, the day before school opened. First reports from the students are that its great. It is much brighter than the old halls and in their terms "looks like a real school." The work in the school is not quite finished but what remains can be accomplished during non-school hours. The emergency exit from the technology room on the corner has been installed and the exterior stair railing is in place. The one on the other side of the building has yet to be installed but that classroom is not in use at the moment. The exterior doors are temporary with the permanent doors due in this next week. The exterior canopy will go on in a couple of weeks. The permanent roof over the new hallway will also go on in a couple of weeks. At present part of the hallway is under a temporary roof and with all the rain of late and strong storms we are hoping it holds.

The county school system has allowed us to change the overall roof type from a tar and gravel "built-up" roof to a electrometric membrane roof. Instead of the tar and gravel we will be using a roof membrane akin to a heavy inner tube material known as EDAM. EPDM roofs are state of the art in commercial buildings and changing to this roof will save on the order of $20,000. In addition we sidestep having to have a tar kettle in operation during school. We still get the same 20 year warranty with this roof as well as free annual inspections by the contractor for the next five years.

The masonry has been completed on the north wall (shop area) and the scaffolding has been relocated elsewhere on the structure. The auditorium west interior wall is completed and the east interior wall is well advanced.

The east wall of the recital hall is about halfway up and the interior rear wall of the main auditorium is being laid out. The control room and sound booth walls at the balcony level have been installed high enough to set the concrete floor for those rooms. Masonry is looking like it will complete around the end of September unless we get more funds to continue interior walls soon.

Once the end of Phase 2 is essentially complete and we spend the next month or so closing out the records and securing the jobsite. Its a little later than we thought but was extended by rainy weather and steel delays, which delayed the masonry, which delayed taking field measurements for the metal panels, and so it goes. In a typical project these types of delays would be made up in follow on tasks and not be as visible. In our case we don't have that many follow on tasks because we are stopping.

Hugh Reams
8-30-2001

BRAVA@onebridgeHome.com
Revised: 13 October 2001