Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
The exterior walls are completely deconstructed one section at a time, leaving only the concrete base and brick-wrapped supports. A whiteboard on an interior classroom wall is visible in this photo as a worker begins to rebuilt the exterior.
This photo illustrates the stages of demolition, asbestos abatement and wall reconstruction that contractors are doing throughout the building all on one wall. Work on the west wall of the high school wing started this past week.
This photo shows what the newly-built wall sections look like on the outside once the windows are installed.
This is a view of a new wall section from the inside.
Contractors deconstruct and rebuild exterior wall sections of New Rockford-Sheyenne School one-by-one
On Tuesday, May 30, construction began on the voter approved wall renovation project, which includes the replacement of the exterior walls, the installation of new heating and cooling units and an upgrade of the building's electrical system.
During the first week, workers from Tooz Construction, Inc. of Dickinson began removing the exterior walls and the glass block. As shown in the photo above, they literally remove the entire exterior wall during demotion, leaving only the concrete base and brick-wrapped supports. The brick is then removed from the supports, and a new wall section is built on-site.
The 60-year old unit ventilators, or heating units, were also removed right away. They will be replaced with efficient, self-contained units that will both heat and cool the spaces. Each classroom will be digitally climate-controlled.
Asbestos abatement on the exterior walls has occurred simultaneously with the demolition of each wall section. This process, completed by Total Control Inc. of Dickinson, involves hand scraping the exterior so that the material does not become airborne. The material is then wrapped and sealed for disposal.
In the midst of all the demolition, Lesmeister Construction poured the concrete for the new basketball court on June 6, which closed out the playground renovation project that began last summer.
During the third week, crews began framing some of the window spaces on the northwest corner of the building near the Outdoor Wildlife Learning Site (OWLS) garden.
Week four saw the arrival of the new windows from Fargo Glass and Paint, and some were installed near the OWLS garden. Each wall section features six windows, two rows of three each. One window in each section, the center bottom, is operable.
As this was written, crews had begun demolition of the exterior walls on the west side along Fifth Street.
The brick mason will be on site within the next week to begin installing brick on the lower portion of the newly-built walls.
For more information on the construction, go to the New Rockford-Sheyenne Schoool District website. They update on a weekly basis.
