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Window and Brick
This is the sample wall that shows the Municipal Complex brickwork and a window has been installed. The windows on the second floor will have a concrete cap on the top and the windows on the first floor will have a concrete cap underneath. Linda Lemmon photos.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — Downes Construction Company put the hammer down on getting the town’s Municipal Complex project “dried in” so work can continue through the winter.
Project Manager Tony DiMauro said Nov. 19 that the sheathing around the building should be finished next week. After that the air vapor barrier is sprayed onto the vertical walls and temporary windows are installed.
Prefacing his comments with “weather dependent,” DiMauro said the bricklayers can then get to work. Masonry work needs a temperature of at least 50, he said. Laying brick goes much faster when the bricklayers are not encumbered by the fire-rated plastic that would wrap around the scaffolding surrounding the building. Once lower temperatures demand it, the wrap will go up and the temporary heat from the two propane tanks already installed will go on, allowing work to continue indoors. The bricklayers will continue working under the wrap.
Town Administrator Elaine Sistare said “folks won’t see the building for the wrap for a few months.”
The roof should be completed the first week of December, according to DiMauro. The roof’s layers consist of a layer of metal, then sheathing, then solid insulation then an air vapor barrier and then black asphalt shingles. The shingles are already on site.
Concrete work is pretty well finished. The building committee chose a “broom finish” concrete “floor” for the arcade area just outside the main entrance. It has a “picture frame” edge, like the sidewalks surrounding the project, Sistare said. Two two concrete staircases inside are done, DiMauro said.
To the side of the building where there are samples of how the brickwork would look, a window has been installed. The windows on the second floor would have a concrete sill on the top and the windows on the bottom would have a concrete sill on the bottom.
Sistare added that the historical documentation draft report on the Aspinock building on School Street has been submitted to the state. The state will add its comments and the project will probably get the go ahead to demolish the 1890s building around Christmas. That spot is where the entrance to the complex will be constructed — two lanes in and one lane out.
The project is on budget and still on schedule to open in late summer/early fall 2021. The complex will be home to the new Town Hall, the Putnam Public Library, the Aspinock Historical Society, a senior center and a community center.
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