Waterproofing project uncovers safety concern

The campus construction projects will soon be moving to new areas of the campus. John Watson, North Lake College's director of facility management said that work on the A building will be completed within a month.

“Water will move wherever it can and wherever it wants to,” said Watson. And that is the reason why there are still areas with leaks in the immediate vicinity of places where waterproofing has been finished, he said.

Watson said that at the same time construction on A building will be ending, a different contractor will begin work on the F and J buildings. Watson was unable to give details as to who the new contractor will be.

Recently, the contractors working on A building have been ripping out bricks on the outside walls of the building. Watson explained they are doing so because of the large, metal pins within the wall which hold the bricks to the cinder block wall beneath.

It was found that the water had leaked in and corroded the pins. With the bricks not connected to the wall as they should, the danger of injury is high if something catastrophic were to happen.

The choice of F and J buildings as the next locations of construction has to do with the risks to safety, said Watson.

He said that the F building (or gym) has the highest outside wall on campus which is between 10 and 12 feet tall.

As for noise, Watson said that while much of the noisier work takes place at night, noise is still a fact of life when it comes to construction work. “When you go into this scale of construction, there's bound to be some noise,” said Watson.

He also said that a person's location in the building has much to do with how much noise will be heard.

Watson mentioned that another project will begin soon which pertains to the fire detection system on campus.

He said that the smoke detectors will be upgraded, and that new smoke detectors will be installed throughout campus, including inside ventilation ducts.

Watson said that the group of connected buildings on campus will be rezoned and fire doors will be placed at the junction between the buildings. He said that this will help prevent fire from spreading between the buildings as quickly as they would currently.

Watson said that the upgrading of the fire detection system will be a more visible project than that of the waterproofing.

“If it's on campus and not moving, we're going to be doing something to it,” he said.