Groton May Delay Repairs To Fitch High School Roof

Groton may not have enough money to repair the roof at and may have to delay the project a year.

Wes Greenleaf, director of facilities for Groton Public Schools, told the Board of Education Tuesday the project will be more costly than expected because of a state rules that increases the required pitch of the roof.

Greenleaf said Groton applied for a waiver of the requirement and was denied.

Representative Town Meeting had approved $600,000 for the project; an estimate that takes into account the additional pitch on the roof is expected today. The tentative guess is about $730,000, Greenleaf said.

The section of roof due for repair covers about 28,000 square feet; by comparison, a typical house has a roof of about 2,000 square feet.

The roof is leaking over the lobby and the gym. Greenleaf said one option would be to spend $5,000 to $10,000 patching it for another year, and seek help from local legislators to have the rule changed.

“There’ an awful lot of cost involved, and we’re stuck right in the middle of it,” he said. “This is just an engineering nightmare. It really is.”

Building code requires roofs to have a pitch of 1/8 to ¼ inch, but about five years ago, the state changed that requirement to ½ inch per foot for schools only.

The rule applies to projects which are receiving state funding, Greenleaf said.