By Sarah Opdahl

At their regular meeting on Tue sday, February 13, New Fairfield’s Permanent Building Committee (PBC) approved moving forward with the demolition and abatement of Consolidated School. The approval paves the way for the design team and school officials to go to the State’s Office of School Construction and Grants Review for approval and then go out to bid on the project. Given the lack of certainty in bus lot location, this phase does not include any elements of that project, it is purely the demolishing of the building and site restoration.

Mr. Mark Schweitzer, of Colliers International, explained that the elementary playground surfac e may be repaired over the school’s spring break in April, depending on both temperature and how much rain the area is receiving. In addition to the surface replacement, the installers need to investigate the cause of why the surface is failing and why many hollows are appearing. They will also add material around the fireman’s pole.

Work continues on punch list items at the high school. The exhaust fan suppliers were on site in recent weeks to continue investigating the vibrations that are occuring. They balanced and finetuned the fans and the resulting vibration and noise was much quieter, with less rattling.

Ongoing issues with propane at the high school appear to be resolving. Mitchell Oil was at the school recently and had odorometer readings that were all within acceptable limits. All hopes are on the Town Fire Marshal Mr. Derrek Guertin having the same findings in order to finally open up the science rooms for full use. With the winter break at hand, a large number of subcontractors will be in the schools to address a variety of remaining punch list items. Final commissioning, a last check of each system, is also in progress. There was a problem with the boilers, but that issue has now been addressed.

There were a series of approvals for items including more work on the elevator in the Middle School, a charge from the audio-visual installer to provide web streaming functionality equipment so that users can webstream from the control room in the high school, and a new request for equipment for the auditorium to ease communication backstage with people in the control room via headsets.

PBC Chair Mr. Don Kellogg welcomed newly appointed alternates, Mr. Mark Havira and Mr. Rory Langguth.

The next regular Permanent Building Committee is scheduled for Tuesday, February 27, 7:30 p.m.