Ongoing repairs to the Family Y in Rutland have exposed more problems and city staff have been granted additional funds to finish the job.
Image Credit: ymcaokanagan.ca
August 26, 2014 - 2:03 PM
KELOWNA – Ongoing repairs to the Family Y in Rutland have exposed more problems and city staff have been granted additional funds to finish the job.
Repair work on the floor between the boiler room and the women’s washroom began late 2013 when it was discovered the concrete had begun to sag. Utility services manager Kevin Van Vliet says during the repairs, they discovered much of the plumbing and electrical was corroded to the point the B.C. Safety Authority ordered immediate, mandatory repairs.
The project was originally going to cost $1,565,000, with the city paying $600,000, another $250,000 from a federal grant and $715,000 provided by the YMCA from its own budget. The new work has added another $300,000 to the final price tag.
Van Vliet says the city was aware of “electrical issues” and were planning to address them in 2015.
“When we started to remove some of the concrete… we had a number of electrical short outs and it became very apparent to us that the electrical problems at the facility were worse than expected,” he says. “We had to react quickly in order to continue to have the facility open.”
Van Vliet acknowledged to councillors Monday, that some of the repair work should not have been left.
“I personally kind of got burned a little bit,” he says. “I had decided to not do a repair above the whirlpool, which turned out to be an erroneous judgement and as a result, a couple of weeks later we had a failure there.”
That repair alone cost approximately $23,000.
“A pool is a very corrosive environment,” he says, adding that the addition of an air conditioning unit in the boiler room also contributed to the accelerated corrosion.
The new pipes will be made of plastic rather than metal and airflow around exposed plumbing has also been improved.
Work is expected to conclude sometime in November.
To contact the reporter for this story, email Adam Proskiw at aproskiw@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-0428. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2014