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01/20/2016 08:00 AMNine months after the Police Department moved into the new police station, work to address subcontractor work warranty issues continues.
Even though the 36 Lynde Street station opened in April 2015, the Department of Police Services has coped for nearly nine months with a range of unresolved items—and workers on site and underfoot assessing and trying to correct the known problems. In a facility that has to operate 24 hours a day, this situation has been problematic.
Most of the deficiencies found in the first six months were corrected by subcontractors by the end of October 2015. But some warranty work items, including replacement of a failed epoxy floor in the detention wing, still are not completed. Also, even in the past three weeks, two new issues arose that had to be added to the action item list.
Police Chief Michael Spera says that he’s now optimistic that the last few work quality issues will finally be addressed within the next month or so.
“We’re thrilled with the new facility, but we want the taxpayers to get what they paid for,” said Spera.
Spera is working with Downes Construction, the town’s design-build contractor, to try to get a speedy resolution to the still-outstanding warranty work issues.
The most disruptive to police operations of the warranty work is the planned replacement of detention wing’s epoxy floor. This floor extends throughout the building addition that includes the police spaces housing the functions of detention, processing, evidence, and those designated as lawyer-client interview rooms.
This project work has long been delayed by a dispute between subcontractors over the cause of the floor failure and to whom fault should be assigned. Late last fall, results of test borings of the floor finally led to a resolution of this dispute. As a result, Spera was relieved to hear that work to replace the floor was now scheduled to begin on Jan. 19.
Due to the dust, fumes, and disruption of the floor project, department staff assigned to station wing will be relocated within the building and the detention and processing functions will temporarily move off site.
The new work warranty issue arising just two weeks ago was an apparent failure of the building’s heating system. As the outside temperatures got colder, personnel remarked that the heating in the building was inconsistent—sometimes it was warm and sometimes too cold. In addition, staff had complained that hot water in the building was not always available on demand. Were the two issues related?
Downes and the plumbing subcontractor arrived on site to investigate. What they discovered was that the natural gas line installed from the street to the building’s boiler was not regulated or plumbed correctly. As a result, the natural gas flow to the boiler was intermittent and inconsistent, causing unwarranted fluctuations in building heat and hot water production. The plumbing subcontractor was on site on Jan. 7, to assess and plan a fix to correct the problem.
Over the holiday break, the department faced another unexpected problem—the sudden failure of the on site fuel pump from which vehicles are filled. After being alerted to the failure, it took the subcontractor four days to send someone to the site to repair it.
Earlier work warranty problems that the department identified fortunately have now all been corrected, though the initial list was longer than might be expected.
Sub-flooring in the main floor offices and in dispatch started to buckle and raise the surface flooring into ridges within a few months of the building’s opening; the sub-floor as well as the carpet and tile on top was replaced. The police parking lot pavement was not applied to specifications, so repairs were made. The building’s initial foundation landscaping died when the subcontractor failed to water as required; another firm replaced the plantings and they’re growing well now. The last problem, excessive humidity in the building’s interior, was addressed by the heating and ventilation contractor, but whether the change corrects the problem will await the humid weather of the summer months.