Westover humidity issues may not be resolved until ’22
STAMFORD — City and school officials have identified the problem and a possible solution to the ongoing mold and humidity issues at Westover Magnet Elementary School, but the fix isn’t expected until summer 2022.
That was the target date mentioned by City Engineer Lou Casolo during a meeting of the Board of Education’s Operations Committee on Tuesday night.
Casolo said the main problem at the school over the last eight months occurs when unit ventilators shut off once the set temperature of a classroom is reached. Air, he said, still comes in through the ventilators in such instances, but that air is not conditioned.
That results in humid air entering the structure, which can then lead to moisture, condensation, and eventually, even mold.
The solution identified by officials is installing three “dedicated outdoor air systems,” or DOAS, in an effort to dehumidify air that enters the structure. The systems, described by Casolo as essentially giant dehumidifiers, would bring in outside air, and take out the moisture, before the air is delivered to unit ventilators inside classrooms.
“This is a system that will control humidity in the building all year long,” Casolo said.
The new system would also involve installing ductwork to maintain building pressurization, Casolo said.
But installing the systems could take over a year, due in part to supply chain issues because of COVID-19, said Laura Burwick, special assistant to the mayor.
In the meantime, there doesn’t seem to be a perfect solution to the school’s humidity woes.
Teachers were recently told they can have windows open in the coming weeks, while the school is still under a heating system. Once the building is turned over to a cooling system on May 15, teachers will be instructed to keep windows closed.
However, Casolo said the ventilator system is inadequate in controlling humidity during the cooling season, meaning such problems are likely to persist during the last month of the school year.
Currently, each classroom has two dehumidifiers inside, to control humidity.
Board member Mike Altamura visited the school on Friday and said it was 80 degrees inside one classroom.
“That’s not a learning environment,” Altamura said.
The board member, who has been outspoken in his disappointment in the remediation efforts at the school over the years, said, “I’m ashamed to see something like this happen, spending $24 million.”
That’s the amount the school district spent on renovations to fix longterm problems at the school, which reopened at the start of this school year.
Westover, located at 412 Stillwater Ave., closed in October 2018 following air quality tests that detected mold. Students were relocated to an office building on Elmcroft Road owned by Building and Land Technology.
“The environment between now and June 22 is what the board is going to be most concerned about,” said board member Jackie Heftman.
She added, “We need to be thinking of alternatives to not having staff and children in that building until the environmental issues are solved because it’s not going away.”
Heather Stramandinoli, a Westover teacher and school representative for the Stamford Education Association teachers union, said moving again is not an option she would entertain, since she and other teachers were tasked with moving their own classroom materials in and out of the office building.
“It’s beyond disappointing and it’s discouraging and it’s shameful,” Stramandinoli said. “In three years, we would have hoped that our problems would have been solved.”
Once repairs were underway at Westover in 2019, workers found more mold than was originally expected at the school building. In February 2019, the district announced the school would be closed for the entire 2019-20 school year and reopen in fall 2020.
But problems have continued. Condensation caused mold to form on ceiling tiles in multiple classrooms a few days before school started on Sept. 8. That mold was removed and the rooms remediated.
Later, mold was discovered in eight classrooms.
Last year, Casolo told members of the Stamford school board’s Operations Subcommittee that keeping the building dry has proven difficult.
The four wings at the school include classrooms that utilize unit ventilators, and they have all been problem areas, he said. Over the past two years, the interior of the building was gutted and renovated as part of a project that included new mechanical upgrades as well as new floors and ceiling tiles.
Potential mold growth has been found in the building as recently as April 9.
Meredith Febbraio, project manager with contractor Tighe & Bond, sent a letter that day to school and city officials stating that “suspect mold growth” was found in sheetrock, and about 32 square feet of the material was removed from four classrooms.