When mold was found in one elementary school in School District 49 in July, administration began testing for mold throughout the district. Mold was found in seven D 49 elementary schools, all were closed for abatement.”The mold was only on exterior walls, but the mold was on the inside of the wall, not the outside,” said Henry Reitwiesner, director of planning and construction.The affected classrooms were designed with a vinyl coating over the wallboard of all four walls, but, as Reitwiesner said, only the exterior walls had mold. And there were tiny holes in those walls from pushpins that had been used to tack papers on the wall.”We think the moisture came from inside the room and got trapped between the vinyl coating and the vapor barrier on the exterior wall,” Reitwiesner said.Jim Walsh, construction manager, said they solved the problem by replacing the wallboard on the exterior walls and painted them instead of using the vinyl covering. “It was quite messy, but we all pulled together,” Walsh said.”The abatement was completed in three weeks and then we had to test and wait for the test results,” Reitwiesner said. “I can now say that we have the cleanest possible air quality.”
