Water leaks suspected cause, action underway
HORNELL — A conference room for the Hornell High School guidance offices has been sealed after testing turned up mold particles in the air, district officials said.
Andy Billotte, project manager with the Welliver construction management company, briefed the school board about the situation during a meeting Thursday night in the high school library.
“After the results came back, the area’s been sealed off,” Billotte told the school board. “There’s plastic on the doors. The HVAC equipment has been turned off so it’s not sending the material around the other spaces.”
Guidance counselors remain in their first-floor offices, as mold has not been detected outside the conference room. School Superintendent Jeremy Palotti said the problem turned up about a week and a half ago. He said mold was not detected visually, but the district brought in a specialist to test the air, and that’s when it was found.
Billotte said water leaks are the cause, and the problem is being dealt with.
“We’ve brought in a number of different contractors that specialize in remediating the mold, so we’ve gotten quotes from them,” he said. “We do have to do a little HVAC and electrical work associated with that. We’ve got to take the ceiling back. So that’s all in motion.
“The other piece is that this area has been leaking. That’s what we’re assuming has been causing (the mold). The water has just been (accumulating) in the carpet and the walls, so we’re going to open up and do some investigative work.”
Palotti said the leaks have “been a concern for a while.”
He continued, “It’s something we’ve tried with various attempts and failed attempts to have a solution. From caulking to drip edges to you name it over the last few years, we’ve been really trying to discern how water is penetrating.
“When it rains just right, it rains just right on the wrong side of the school.
“At this point, this idea of just take it apart and see if there were errors in how it was put together, if there’s something internal that is not working properly, we’re really hopeful that we’ll find the cause.”
Billotte explained the strategy to do that.
“Along with this work of remediating the mold, we’re also going to remove that exterior window system that’s there. There are five windows across the conference room and the adjacent office. That window system is going to be removed and when we open up the wall, we’re going to take a look and see if we can figure out exactly where it’s coming from. Is it the window system that’s actually failing, or is it the exterior wall system above that’s allowing water to penetrate into the building and come down the face of the window?
“We’re really taking advantage of opening up and doing some investigative work to prevent it, so when we put it back together it’s not a recurring issue.”
Billotte said once the work begins, it will take about two weeks.
“After all the work is done, a second inspector has to come in to deem that, yes, the air is clean, and then there’s a visual inspection that there’s nothing left.”
Billotte said the will be air quality safeguards in place going forward.
“There’s going to be a couple stand alone units that basically have a UV light in it that circulates the air through and basically will kill anything that’s in the air. That’s for the main spaces.
“Then there’s an air-handling unit that does the common area that also will get an ultraviolet installed in the unit so that when the air circulates through there, if there’s anything in the air, again, that will kill that going through that air stream.”
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