By Thia James

City could foot bill to fix ‘poor workmanship’ on Field House’s roof

Jul 7, 2014 | 6:25 AM

The Alfred Jenkins Field House is only four years old, but recently, its roof began to leak, prompting the City of Prince Albert to look at putting $25,000 towards its repair.

This past spring, water began to leak from the roof onto the walking track on the third floor, and other leaks were found, including one in the Rotary Room. With the help of a roofing company, the City found that there was ice damming getting underneath one section of the metal roof, causing screws to lift and water to get in.

But they also found the curbing where the low slope roof meets the flat roof was poorly installed.

“Well, it appears that there was some poor workmanship on that particular facility,” city manager Jim Toye said on Friday of why the Field House was among four other city-owned buildings that are on this year’s roof repair list.

“We can’t go against the contract at this particular time because any type of warranty that we would have the time has passed.”

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The City has already set aside $10,000 to repair the Field House’s leaking roof. But it’ll need an extra $15,000, which will be on the upcoming agenda for council to approve.

Administration evaluated the roofing of a number of city-owned buildings, many much older than the Field House. Out of the buildings they looked at, they’ve proposed roofing work be done on the Field House, the Art Hauser Centre, the Old Log Cabin, Old City Yards and the Prince Albert Golf and Curling Club this year.

The requests are on the executive committee agenda for Monday afternoon’s meeting.

The most expensive repair proposed would be $205,000 to the Old City Yards, including a repair to the wash bay. The wash bay has been closed every winter for the last three years, and officials have no plans to change that until the roof is fixed.

But where the Field House is concerned, Toye said that, although he’s not a roofing expert, he feels there’s something the contractor that worked on its roof could have done differently to prevent the ice damming. That’s because, as he said, roofs like this one have been built all over the province.

“You would have thought that the contractor would have known about that.”

Despite the leaky roof, Toye said there wasn’t a lot of interior damage done to the building itself.

“It was more uncomfortable than actual damage, and had the roof been installed properly … we wouldn’t have had to experience those types of things,” he said.

This likely won’t go unaddressed with the contractor. Toye said he thinks the City will have discussions with them and that they’ve tried that already.

“And when we do have the bills for this work, we’d make sure we’d contact them again, and say … ‘we haven’t been in that facility very long and had your workmanship been done properly, I mean, we wouldn’t have been going through the expense, and it’s going to be close to $25,000.”

They’re looking to fix the roof right now, so there are no long-term effects, he said.

Toye did not name the contractor that worked on the Field House’s roof, saying “that was before my time.” The company that acted as the site supervisor during the construction phase has been contacted for this story about the roofing contractor.

He did say that when it comes to considering the roofing contractor for future work, this is a “red flag up” for the City.

“You know, they didn’t install the last job properly, so, why would we entertain them, even if they’re the lowest price. Sometimes you get the lowest price and that’s why you get what you pay for. So, perhaps if we went with a bit of a higher price, then we would have gotten better workmanship.”

paNOW is actively seeking out comments from the contractor responsible for the installation of the Alfred Jenkins Field House and will post a story with their response as soon as it is available.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames