Sloan Elementary architects discover damaged fire walls not up to code

In early 2017 while discussing a facilities study that outlined more than $70 million in improvements the Franklin Regional School District would need over the next decade, former board member John Koury said previous school directors had “a Band-Aid mentality” when it came to maintenance.

The current board saw an unfortunate example of that this week when they were presented with a $17,000 change order for fire walls at Sloan Elementary that should already be in place, according to architect Dan Engen.

“They cheated when they built the building last time, as far as I’m concerned,” Engen told school board members Monday. “They didn’t meet code, the inspectors who inspected it didn’t see it, and approved it.”

At issue was a new wall for a room at Sloan, which was supposed to be a two-hour rated fire wall — meaning it is created using material designed to be fire-resistant — as part of the building’s overall fire-protection plan.

Construction manager Nancy Gorgas said workers built a small section of the wall using new masonry, but “the majority was an existing wall and above the ceiling, there were a tremendous number of penetrations and openings that had to be sealed in order to provide the proper rating for a two-hour fire wall.”

Finding one improper fire wall was a red flag for Engen.

“We went and basically made them take the ceilings down in all the other locations, and we found the other places where it wasn’t done right,” he said.

Engen said a previous round of renovations at Sloan included additional pipe installation, “and there’s a fire-safe way to do that. They didn’t do it. They just cut or knocked a big hole, let the pipes go through, and never went back and fire-stopped it,” Engen said.

Engen said the problem may have been discovered earlier if architects had been provided with a complete set of drawings for the existing building.

“You had hardly any drawings,” he said. “We had a couple plumbing drawings and a couple HVAC drawings. There were multiple additions over the years, and those drawings just disappeared. We had virtually nothing to work from.”

The fire wall work was among roughly $52,000 in change orders brought before the board, which will likely vote on them Nov. 16.

“I just don’t understand how (the fire walls) got approved by a building official,” Engen said. “That’s usually one of the major things they look at on our projects: whether they’re fire-safe. … When it’s done, you’ll have a fully separated building from a fire-code point-of-view that will protect your investment, so I think it’s an important thing to do.”

Meetings are streamed live at YouTube.com/user/FranklinRegionalSD.