Meadowbrook is wet. Very wet. At a joint meeting of the Building Committee and the School Committee last week, an engineering firm, SGH, hired by the School Department presented its findings from a yearlong study of Meadowbrook.

This nugget really caught my attention: in spring and fall Meadowbrook has 10 gallons of water per 1000 square feet. 10 gallons! Mr. Scheiner said 1 gallon is the norm.

I was also fascinated with some of the pictures he showed of the “fix” put in a few years back. I’m sure everybody meant well at the time but … it all had a certain “home made” look. I kept expecting to see a slide with a big ball of duct tape. Apparently, the pipes that were added to take moisture OUT to the roof are bringing it IN. That’s right adding more water to the wet floor, leading more sections of floor to fail.

Did you know that the School Department spends $15,000 to $25,000 every year replacing failed sections of floor? That’s an expensive Band Aid.

Have you seen the army of portable de-humidifiers that are moved from room to room? Cleaned, emptied, water mopped up. The janitors spend a lot of time chasing water.

And the floor is not the only one of many points of entry for all this water.

Mr Scheiner’s presentation was methodical in its structure. He would show photo documentation of a particular problem, followed by graphs illustrating it with scientific data then offer a solution. Very engineer-y. 

Mr. Scheiner and SGH say that taking out the vents, replacing the roof, putting in a new HVAC system, and replacing the floor will fix the moisture problem. Jon Winkur asked how long the building would be useful if these things were done and Mr. Scheiner said, “indefinitely” without hesitation.

At this point I should say that the meeting was opened with remarks from Jay Gowell, chair of the Building Committee. He wanted to clear up some rumors about possibly Meadowbrook closing. It’s NOT. We have 300 students housed there and none of our other school buildings can fit them. As a matter of fact, Jon Winkur said that enrollment at Meadowbrook would have to drop some 30% before we could even entertain the notion of putting these students in one of our existing buildings.

Right now $1.6 million of the 2008 school improvement bond is allocated for the Meadowbrook floor. The SGH recommendations will cost roughly 3 million. The additional $1.4 million could easily come out of the Cole surplus.

The Building Committee voted for the full fix.

They then asked members of the School Committee what they thought. It appears they are disinclined to do much more than what they are doing now — placing giant Band Aids over buckling floor tiles. Even though in 2008 we all rallied behind their School Improvement Bond with the promise of a new floor.

Suppose your roof is leaking. You don’t have $10,000 to fix it so you put down towels, and buckets every time it rains. Once a year you have to spend $1,000 on a new rug. It’s a pain to chase the drips from room to room, but what can you do? You have a guy who comes over to empty the buckets and wring out the towels so it’s not really your time being wasted. Oh, and you pay him.

Suddenly, you inherit $10,000 from Great Aunt Hilda. Would you fix the roof? Or would you do some other projects you have been meaning to get to? I would fix the roof.

It’s my house, I have to live here for a loooong time. Over the long term, water will ruin my house and I’ll have to move. I don’t want a big new mortgage in 15 or 20 years. I want to take care of my current investment. It seems the School Committee thinks the other projects are more important.

Do they plan on asking me to hold another sign outside Swift Gym in 2020? This time asking voters to issue a bond to replace Meadowbrook because it’s beyond repair.