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At Tuesday’s meeting of the Stanly County Board of Education, the board unanimously approved a bid to repair the roof of the West Stanly High School gym.

The board unanimously approved the bid of Bar Roofing at $716,000 with an estimated completion time of 90 days. Other bids came from Eskala Roofing (759,066), AAR of NC ($786,000), Weathergard ($844,800), Piedmont Commercial ($997,700) and Dovco Roofing ($1,045,000).

Keith Benton, maintenance director for Stanly County Schools (SCS), presented the item to the board after opening the bids earlier that day.

Benton said the roof “has had an active leak for a while,” noting he and his staff core drilled the roof to see where materials had been added over the years, taken off and replaced.

The new roof will be “a roof with a better R rating, better foam layer of insulation which in turn gives you better protection of the building and condition the space more efficiently.”

When asked by board member Carla Poplin about the kind of roof to be installed, Benton said it will not be made of foam but will be polyvinyl chloride (PVC). The new roof will also have a crown and the water actually “sheds off of it and doesn’t sit on a flat roof.”

Benton said the roof currently has seven layers in multiple cross sections, and every one of them were filled with water.

Board member Glenda Gibson asked Benton about the gym’s walls, which Benton said will be painted once the walls dry out.

The life expectancy of the roof, Benton said, is 20 years, with the need to start the lengthy process of replacing the new roof at around the 17-year mark.