They're building Highland School Well

Beaver County Times January 16, 2003

Foreman Architects and Engineers made a presentation to the Harmony Township Council in December. The Conference of Consumer Organizations went to Zelienople a few days later to look at the actual plans. We had two specific questions.

First, The building has a flat roof. The heat from the building, and the structure's natural settling process, causes ponds of water to form. Insurance policies are reluctant to pay for roof leaks caused by ponding water. It's not a "sudden and accidental loss." Also, plugged gutters and downspouts are often excluded under the policy. The Architects are on top of this. The roof has a 10% slope from the supporting walls into a catch drain near the center. Water will continually drain away. Problem solved.

Second, one entire wall faces almost straight south. A service road then provides a dead space about twice the height of the wall. This is ideal for solar collection. The rooms facing south are the gym, music, art, cafeteria, and kitchen. These do not need large windows, and the gym is one of the hardest rooms to heat. If they could achieve even 60% efficiency with the collector, the cost of heating at least these rooms would drop through the floor. Foreman's project officer, John Hummel, said that it's way too late to change the plans for solar collection now. What he can do is verify that the south walls are strong enough to support a solar collector, and the wind stress that often comes with them. This way the solar panels can be retro-fitted later.

I wish COCO had gotten there earlier in the development process.

Roger Thomas

PS. Roger is a Director of the Conference of Consumer Organizations.