TCC repair bill comes in at $813,000

NEWS/ CITY HALL — Fixing leaks in the Tournament Capital Centre fieldhouse will cost taxpayers well over three-quarters of a million dollars, as expected.

The lowest bid for repairs to problems caused by vapour barrier failures is $813,015 by Western Roofing Ltd., which City council will be asked Tuesday to approve.

The good news is the City budgeted $854,700. TRUE Construction bid $855,750.

The problem was noticed almost two years ago, which prompted an engineering study to figure out what to do about it.

PDH Engineering found that the absence of vapour barriers in some parts of the building had caused condensation to form and drip down into insulation and pool on the floors. In some places, air was escaping from the building, and in others, rain was getting in during heavy rainfalls.

Work is expected to be finished by mid-November and no “significant” interruptions in the operating schedule of the TCC are expected, since most of it will be done to the outside of the building. The outer metal cladding has to be peeled off to install the vapour barrier.

Any inside work will be scheduled in evenings or off-peak usage times.

“It’s a large, unique building,” facilities manager Jeff Putnam said after the engineering report came in. “It encounters a lot of heat and cold and wide variations of temperature. So there’s a lot of issues involved with a building this size. It’s not unusual to have some air leakage issues. But in this instance we’ve identified some abnormal deficiencies.”

Recouping costs from the original contractor was the subject of a separate process.