A project to insulate Heritage High School’s notorious curtain walls is now complete. All that remains for workers is a minor side project to trim windows inside the building. That’s set to finish before students return in January.
The repair work — which involved covering the faulty curtain walls with a layer of water-repelling synthetic stucco — has dramatically curtailed the number of leaks at Heritage, said schools facilities director Steve Gatzke.
“We’ve already noticed a great decrease,” Gatzke said. “We’re very happy with the results we’re getting.”
For example, Gatzke said, when a heavy rainfall blew through Lynchburg at the end of November, he normally would have expected to get 20 to 30 reports of water seeping into Heritage.
Instead, he got reports of about 10 leaks, all minor.
“It seems to have decreased the number of leaks in the building significantly,” Gatzke said, adding the fresh white finish on the repaired walls also has “really dressed up” the school’s exterior.
Workers removed the scaffolding from the project on Wednesday, just two days before winter break. Gatzke said the project went smoothly and finished sooner than he first anticipated.
Heritage, which is set to be replaced or heavily renovated by 2018, spent years grappling with a tenacious leaking problem that routinely soaked floors, destroyed ceiling tiles and occasionally imperiled electronic equipment.
School leaders attributed the soggy dilemma to poorly constructed curtain walls, which are a type of cheaper, non-load-bearing wall that featured prominently in the original design of the circa-1975 high school.
In 2010-11, the city gave the schools $500,000 to fix the wall flaws. The school division kicked in another $78,000.
The repairs, which got underway over the summer, involved putting new layers of insulation and protective waterproofing over the curtain walls. The product is often referred to as synthetic stucco because its final finish looks like stucco.
Gatzke said it’s likely there are still some small leaks within the building’s roofs, but now that the curtain wall problem is addressed, those will be easier to pinpoint and fix as they come up.
Staff writer Jessie Pounds contributed
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