NORTH SMITHFIELD – The brand new floor in the North Smithfield High School gymnasium has been looking less than perfect as it contracts due to dry air, and also had to be dried out following a roof leak last weekend.
According to Supt. Michael St. Jean, a leak occurred on Saturday, Feb. 15 following extensive rain, which fell on top of slush buildup on the roof of the nearly 60-year-old school.
A scheduled basketball playoff game had to be moved to Mount Saint Charles Academy to allow the floor to dry following the incident. Fortunately, the superintendent noted, the students were on winter break at the time.
“The floor below the leak is being dried out and should be ready for PE classes to resume after the February vacation,” St. Jean said.
The gymnasium floor – complete with the Northmen logo painted in school colors – was replaced last year at a cost of $218,360 according to a contract approved lat May. It was renovated as part of a flurry of school facility improvements last summer that also included high efficiency lighting and replacement of bleachers in the facility. Aramsco, Inc. was hired to install the flooring, provided by manufacturer Casey Engineered Maintenance Systems.
The project – which also included $9,000 for engineering and design services paid to firm Studio Jaed – was completed last fall, with bleachers arriving in September. The improvements marked the first major gymnasium renovation since the school was built in 1966.
But just months later, many have noted wide gaps between the flooring panels throughout the gymnasium.
St. Jean said the issue was caused by dry air associated with the school’s heating system.
“For the short term, we have brought in some humidifiers to offset this,” he said
The floor is still under warranty with Casey Engineered Maintenance Systems, and St. Jean said the manufacturer will continue to inspect the results and make adjustments.
“We only use certified maple from a Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association mill,” the company said in a statement on the issue. “This wood comes from the upper midwest where it is kiln dried and milled to very specific tolerances.”
The manufacturer said that once the wood is brought to a facility, it has to acclimate for 8 to 14 days before installation.
“When we’re sure the moisture content is 6 percent to 8 percent, we started installing the floor,” CEMS noted. “The floor was then sealed, allowed to cure, and then painted and three more coats of water-based poly applied. All standard installation procedures.”
The statement noted that wood floors continue to absorb and dispel moisture through their life cycle.
“This is the reason why when a gym floor is installed, we leave gapping on the sides of the floor of up to two inches,” noted CEMS. “This allows the floor in high humidity to expand without buckling. Just as the floor can expand in high humidity it will also shed the moisture and shrink in low humidity.”
St. Jean said school officials are looking into a long-term humidifier/dehumidifier solution for the gymnasium and that once the issue is resolved, the floor should not show sustained damage.
“When looking at a climate control system for the gymnasium, that has been part of the ongoing feasibility and pricing discussions to bring AC into select areas of the building, which also includes the auditorium and cafeteria,” St. Jean said. “To do the entire school is prohibitively expensive, but we can at least try to address the public spaces.”
This is what happens when you value sports over education. I would rather of had a new roof over a new gym floor. But the Superintendent and school committee is just like the town council and other departments that do zero basic preventative maintenance and instead spend on nice to have items. Now you need a new roof and will ask the taxpayers for more funding. Second the building has never had a/c but now we need a/c. Sounds like another ploy by the Superintendent to waste more taxpayer money. Now I also love the Superintendents comment on a 60 year old school. Which translates to we need a new school because we all now a new school will increase the educational quality when in fact studies find a new building has zero impact on educational quality and it’s all about the educators and not about the building. When will union st jean be proposing a bond for a new school. I think its time for a change in school leadership more focused on education instead of financial waste and nice to haves items.
I think you are forgetting that the gymnasium is used by the students 7 periods a day, 180 days a year. Refurbishing the gymnasium isn’t about prioritizing sports over education.
“DT” has a proven track record of politicizing articles and claiming incompetence and nefarious behavior of individuals whether they are related to the article or not.
Physical EDUCATION takes place in the school gymnasium.
Perhaps 60mph winds, snow, ice and rains may have caused an accident???
They do happen, but apparently not in his world and everything is waste and a conspiracy!
JP I did not read of any massive roof issues any where else in the state of RI. My roof and my neighbors roofs were all fine where the houses are well over 60 years old but the 60 year old school had a problem because things happen. Things happen when proper maintenance is not done as proven by what happened at the school. I could see if their was a tree that fell on the roof but that did not happen in this case. So I would have chosen to replace the roof over the floor and done the floor at a later date. I remember attending a school with an 80 year old floor but the roof never leaked because proper maintenance was done on the roof since it was more important to stay dry than to have a fancy new floor. And yes physical education was had in the gym but not 7 periods a day because if you looked at NS gym time, NS has the most GYM time in the state which I would vote for more math and reading education time. Also this is not a conspiracy it is unexperienced management making poor decisions that cost the taxpayers more in the long run. Please explain to how the superintendent of schools is qualified to make informed decisions on facility needs when he was trained to be an educator. So I conclude he made the popular decision instead of the informed correct decision due to his lack of facility maintenance experience.
– Just because you didn’t read about any, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Events do occur outside of your bubble.
– Comparing the leak resistance of a house’s roof with shingles to a flat tarred roof, like that of the gymnasium, is unhelpful false-equivalence.
– All the preventative maintenance in the world isn’t going to stop ice dams from forming when snowfall is followed by rain and freezing temperatures. Short of having a shovel-crew on standby to work through the storm, you’re forced to roll the dice.
– How do you know the roof over this 80-year-old gym never leaked? Were you there to inspect it each day for 80 years? How do you know the floor was never replaced?
– A gym that just sits empty for entire periods sounds like a waste of taxpayer money.
– You must be educated as an educator to be a school superintendent.
– They’re qualified to make the decisions because they delegate and defer to the other administrators and professionals that report to them, instead of assuming they know what’s best at all times. The same way any competent leader would operate.
– There was never a decision ‘should we replace the roof or the floor?’ It was ‘the floor is original and unsafe, it must be replaced’.
– The A/C issue is long-standing and the entire school community agrees something needs to be done about it. These buildings have no central HVAC and reach over 100 degrees in the summer.
– The schools are the only town body that has an actual asset management program in-place. We’re working on getting one in-place for the entire town. The fact of the matter is that these town bodies do not have the resources needed to log and maintain everything that they’re charged with maintaining.
– The superintendent wasn’t quoted saying anything about the school’s age, that is exposition added by the author, Sandy.
The article states “According to Supt. Michael St. Jean, a leak occurred on Saturday, Feb. 15 following extensive rain, which fell on top of slush buildup on the roof of the nearly 60-year-old school.” Second RI temperatures do not reach 100 degrees. RI has only reached 100 degrees 5 times in the last 100 years and students do not attend school in the summer. Now if you think air conditioning is important to quality learning then maybe the school department should have installed air conditioning in 2009 instead of building a $1 million football field that has now cost the town over $2 million. Again the popular decision was made instead of the educational quality decision. Also installing air condition would increase the annual utility cost dramatically but when you drive by the middle school in the winter and summer and see many windows open I guess no one has a concern for the utility costs.
Josh is correct, the age of the school is not part of a quote from the superintendent, but rather a detail I added to the sentence for context.
The reason the windows are open is because there is no climate control. The interior of the MS (and I’m sure the HS) swings wildly. Some rooms are boiling hot while others are frigid. If you feel like that’s an environment conducive to learning, I don’t think we have more to discuss.
I will state if the middle school spent the correct funding and used quality contractors when built the hvac unit would work correctly. But the powers to be shaved $1 million from the budget to build a football field instead of properly equipping the building with quality air handling. So why didn’t the school department fix the hvac system instead of put in a new gym floor. Now again taxpayers have to pay for poor management decisions. Now as far as windows being open I usually see this at night when the building is empty with way too many lights on. No one has a concern for the utility bill and the waste on money.
– It doesn’t have to be 100 outside for it to be 100 inside. Go into your attic on a hot day and let us know how comfortable it is. There’s no central hvac in these buildings so there’s very little airflow.
– The month of September falls primarily in the summer, at least on my calendar it does.
– Students absolutely attend summer programs at the schools, including studnets from other towns which brings it outside money we wouldn’t ordinarily see. We’d see more of it if there was A/C.
– Having enormous buildings that are only useful 3/4 seasons is an astonishing waste of taxpayer money.
– How is the need for A/C today in any way related to a decision made 15+ years ago about a football field? The two aren’t related in any way.
– They have to open the windows because the heaters in the classrooms are original to the building and have three settings, each one either does nothing, screeches like a banshee, or gets the room so hot the windows have to be opened to regulate the heat. These are the exact reasons the hvac needs to be updated.
It would seem to me, that if the company knows that the floor is to be installed in a dry area, they should be able to take this into consideration during the install and not after the fact. The idea that humidifiers have to be installed/explored permanently seems odd.
If I had a floor installed in my home and the installer came back and said I need to spend money on a humidifier and electricity to run it, I’d call BS.
But what do I know? I only have common sense on my side.
Much knowledge has been gained on maintaining a gym floor product. Has to have a certain humidity in the environment Google it. It’s standard maintenance actually.
Vinyl siding installers have to leave the siding not tightly nailed so it too can breathe, contract and expand, per the weather temp outdoors here. Many think you nail it tightly like reg siding, will lead to cracks and buckling eventually. I noted a certain NS siding person on Harkness Rd applying it tightly on homes he did, he needs to take a course on proper application. Many ppl just get into the business without proper instruction/education. Another example.
Knowledge is power. Research.