Marblehead High School Roof Fix Cost Rises $8M With HVAC Replacement

MARBLEHEAD, MA — The cost to fix the leaky Marblehead High School roof will more than double under a proposal to replace the obsolete HVAC system and the roof all at once — rather than replace only the roof and face more complications with removing and reattaching an HVAC system also nearing its end.

Under the proposal, town meeting members will be asked to shoulder the burden of another $8.6 million debt exclusion in addition to the $5.36 million already approved for the project.

"There's a lot of concern that the price of the roof project escalated," Marblehead Town Administrator Thatcher Kezer told the Select Board this week. "To clarify, the price of the roof project has not escalated at all. The estimates that were done a year or so ago are still valid numbers. Now inflation is pounding away, so there may be some tweaks down the road. But that number is good.

"What changed was the scope of the work in that it was determined more recently that the HVAC system on the roof is at the end of its life cycle. ... If the schools went forward and replaced the roof, and then subsequently went forward and replaced the HVAC, you are going to punch holes in a brand new roof and you are going to violate the warranty."

Kezer said doing both projects "in the right sequence" protects the viability of the roof project.

Marblehead Assistant Superintendent Michael Pfifferling told the School Committee on Thursday night that if the HVAC project is approved at this spring's town meeting then bids can go out and the work could begin in May of 2026.

He added that any roof work near the fieldhouse would have to be delayed until the end of June to account for high school graduation in the case of rain.

He said that while the HVAC system remains functional for now, it will not be for long as the coolant system used is no longer commercially available. He told the Committee coolant can still be obtained — essentially by draining it from other systems that still use the same coolant — but that process is likely to no longer be available within the next two to three years.

He said that in order to put on the new roof, the HVAC system would have to be removed and then replaced on the new roof — with no guarantees that it would survive that process.

"Understandably, the questions about this kind of add and pile on to the community's concern about 'What are we doing?'" School Committee member Alison Taylor said Thursday night. "(The perception that) we're not managing our money. Why did we not get it right the first time? We need to own things and be upfront and honest about where the missteps were."

Taylor noted that many of those in charge of the project now — including Pfifferling — were not part of the process that led to the original $5.3 million request for the roof only.

"I just want to be really, really clear about this for the community's sake," she said. "There was no feasibility study. Nobody went up there and did a deep dive and understood exactly what was going on or looked at the HVAC units and how they are attached to the roof.

"So that's why the number is what it was two years ago compared to why the number is what it is now."

Superintendent John Robidoux said that in order to have a new roof properly installed with a warranty to last the full 20 to 25 years it has to be done "soup to nuts."

"There's conversation out there about cobbling it together," Robidoux said. "That's not going to work. ... We are working with what was handed to us and also to be responsible with the cost and the longevity of the project."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)