SOUTHAMPTON — The town is trying to identify the cause of excess moisture inside the Senior Center connected to Town Hall on College Highway, a development that forced the center to recently close for two weeks.
Town Administrator Scott Szczebak said the center closed Sept. 28 “out of an abundance of caution” because two mold spots formed in the building.
“We had a professional come out to do air quality testing,” said Szczebak, noting that the air is fine except for the two areas of mold.
The closure gave the town time to remove the mold. One spot formed in the center’s refrigerator-freezer. The other formed on a bookshelf, likely because of a leaky plant placed on top of it, Szczebak said.
The center reopened last week.
Still, there is a broader moisture issue in the building that the town is moving to address. Szczebak said Town Hall’s 15-year-old heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system is not helping the issue either.
“It’s not a consistent issue but it (the moisture) does have spikes, especially if it’s raining it can feel more damp,” Szczebak said, adding that there was a heavy rainfall just before the center closed.
A leading theory for the cause of the moisture issue is that runoff from a hill next to Town Hall could be funneling water directly toward the building. There are also several cracks in the brick of the building that could be allowing moisture to enter, Szczebak added.
“We’re still investigating the moisture issue there’s a lot of theories,” he said.
In the short term, the town bought an industrial dehumidifier to help mitigate the dampness and will perform a deep clean of the center.
Officials are also exploring longer-term solutions for the HVAC system. Specifically, the control system for the HVAC unit has not been updated for some time. Szczebak told the Select Board at its Oct. 13 meeting that options to replace the controls are limited given the age of the unit. The system was purchased with exclusive software by the servicing manufacturer B-G Mechanical of Chicopee, limiting which contractors can work on it.
Szczebak said the town is gathering cost estimates to replace the control system of the HVAC unit, but as Select Board Chair Jon Lumbra noted at the meeting, it will likely be costly.
“Once the quotes arrive I suspect it’s going to be outside of any of our current budget constraints,” Lumbra said.
Szczebak said he will contact the town’s capital spending committee to see if there is available funding for the repairs.
