Jacked up Bridgton Town Hall now level

July 24th, 2015
BARE TO THE BONES — Workers from Doten Construction were adding rigid insulation Monday between the exposed framing on the rear of Bridgton Town Hall, after spending the first week shoring up deterioration in the foundation involving the entire rear half of the North High Street building. The building had to be jacked up slightly to level the floor space in the hall’s storage area and replace the deteriorated portions of the foundation. The workers say the damage was worse than they had anticipated, but that it should not result in added costs or delays to the project. (Geraghty Photo)

BARE TO THE BONES — Workers from Doten Construction were adding rigid insulation Monday between the exposed framing on the rear of Bridgton Town Hall, after spending the first week shoring up deterioration in the foundation involving the entire rear half of the North High Street building. The building had to be jacked up slightly to level the floor space in the hall’s storage area and replace the deteriorated portions of the foundation. The workers say the damage was worse than they had anticipated, but that it should not result in added costs or delays to the project.
(Geraghty Photo)

By Gail Geraghty

Staff Writer

Anyone who has renovated an old building knows the maxim: you never know what you’ll find until you have it uncovered.

So says Bridgton Town Manager Bob Peabody about the ongoing repair project at Bridgton’s historic Town Hall.

“It was always the hope that the building could remain open, but I own an old home, and you never know what you’re going to find until you get in there,” he said. The building was closed for safety reasons last week, temporarily suspending all recreational programming for the next few weeks.

When workers from Doten Construction began tearing off the siding in the rear half of the hall, they found that the rotting sills they knew were there had caused more damage than first suspected. Parts of the granite foundation had also begun to crumble.

“The support under that corner is pretty much gone,” Peabody said, referring to the Bridgton side of the rear of the building. “We didn’t want people in the building” while shoring-up work was going on, he added.

Doten called in a moving company in order to jack up the building so they could replace the deteriorated portions of the foundation. That work has been completed, and now workers are installing rigid insulation board between the framing to replace the old foam insulation that had pretty much been destroyed by water intrusion from runoff.

The good news is that the Hall’s gymnasium flooring will not need to be disturbed even though the damage was worse than expected. The building is now level, and additional stabilization work and upgrading of the exterior can now proceed as planned.