High school roof repair on track

Persistant snowfall led to the collapse of a section of Havre High School's roof, over the school's cafeteria, in December.

New students are being acclimated to the ways of Havre High School today, before class begins on Monday. Another recent addition to the school, the new roof, is also getting situated, after a minor setback earlier this month.

At Tuesday afternoon's Havre Public Schools Board of Trustees meeting, Superintendent Andy Carlson told the board about how the high school's roof reinforcement and reshingling process has been going since started earlier this summer by Talcott Construction from Great Falls.

"The high school roof underneath work is going quite well, " Carlson said.

The reinforcing of the roof, which collapsed in some places in December under large snow drifts and showed signs of strain and buckling elsewhere, should be completed in the next week. Carlson said the crew was largely done with a few spots left to finish up, as of Tuesday afternoon.

"The shingling is not progressing as well, " Carlson said to the board.

He explained that the crew that had been working on the roof was replaced after it was discovered that they were not installing shingles correctly, like using five nails instead of the required six. He said 45 squares of the tile had to be removed and redone, this time by a more thoroughly watched crew.

The board's chair, Darlene Bricker, asked Carlson if the setback would affect the completion of the project, one of the steps of which requires the weather to remain between 45 and 75 degrees for the shingles to set.

Carlson said he wasn't sure and, at Bricker's request, would see if they could get someone from Talcott to come to the next school board meeting, on Tuesday, Sept. 13.

Mike Barsness, project manager for Talcott Construction, said on Wednesday afternoon that the mix-up was minor, and he didn't anticipate it delaying the project's timeline at all.

"Things are going quite well out there, " Barsness said. "The structural replacement is ahead of schedule. Things are going fine. We're hoping to be done the first week of October. We need some weather and other things to go right for us, but it should work out. "

Barsness does not see any reason that the project would go past the contract's November deadline.