Summer projects underway at Quincy schools

Published 9:27 am Wednesday, June 10, 2026

QUINCY — Quincy Public Schools Maintenance Director Ryan Clair strides across the roof of the Early Childhood and Family Center, noting the potential for soft spots underfoot and separating seams.

All the more reason, he said, to replace the flat roof at the building serving QPS’ youngest learners.

With QPS already planning work on the building’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, “we felt it was appropriate to tackle the roof issues at the same time,” Clair said. “They kind of go hand in hand.”

The school district’s list of Health, Life, and Safety projects this summer includes replacing the ECFC roof and six rooftop HVAC units on the east side of the building, with work to replace the two boilers expected to wrap up before cold weather hits. Work on another life safety project, replacing two air handlers on the west side of the building, is slated for summer 2027.

All four projects involve local contractors who won bids awarded by the School Board – Air Specialists Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc., for the six rooftop units; $1,129,000 from Peters Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc., for the boilers and large rooftop units; and $534,600 from Tournear Roofing.

“It’s important as a district to highlight our local talent,” Clair said. “When they’re able to come in and do a job for us, we feel pretty comfortable with that. There’s a little bit more pride that goes into that.”

Plans call for crews to redo the roof on the west side of the building while HVAC workers remove and replace the rooftop units on the east side of the building. “In a perfect world, once that’s done, the roofers will transition over to there,” Clair said. “We’re hoping that’s the way it works out.”

The roof project, when finished, should leave QPS in good shape for years to come.

“This is really the last roof replacement that the district should have to worry about for at least the next 15 years,” Clair said. “I refer to this project as us getting out of the roofing business for a while, hopefully.”

QPS staff in recent years have been busy finding and patching ECFC’s roof leaks.

“The problem is trying to find a roof leak on a flat roof is trying to find a needle in a haystack at times,” Clair said. “We’ve spent hours and hours up here trying to find that one leak – at times the size of a pinhole or a seam just barely coming up. The problem is when the moisture gets underneath this roof, water is going to find a low spot. The leak could be here, and it could be affecting a room two rooms down where the low spot is.”

Ongoing HVAC issues also have challenged the building, with two main compressors failing just before school started last year and operating with just one of the boilers this past winter. Doing major repairs last year wasn’t cost-effective knowing that the systems were due to be replaced.

“We don’t have to worry about boiler season until hopefully mid-October to November. We’ve got a little extra time to get that taken care of before winter season hits,” Clair said.

With the boilers in the roof’s penthouse, “we’re able to access that and do that work even if school’s in session,” he said. “We feel pretty good about having that work completed …. As long as we don’t have any unexpected delays.”

When the roof, HVAC, and boiler work is done at ECFC, with lighting upgrades already complete, the only major project remaining at the building involves concrete work.

“We’ve got some pretty big sidewalk repairs and projects,” he said. “We’re wanting to potentially partner with the city.”

But in the meantime, Clair hopes he’ll be able to enjoy a watertight building.

“The best part will be when we get an inch or two inches of rain, I’m not getting panicked calls that we have a roof leak or the ceiling tiles are leaking,” he said.