GREENSBORO – The air smells better than it has in years, said Greensboro Town Clerk Kim Greaves, following recent mold mitigation in the town hall’s ground floor utility room.
photo by Paul Fixx
Plans are to move the office back downstairs on December 5, where Greaves and other town employees will be closer to the town’s vault and get back to using the service window added during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The town clerk’s office moved to an empty first floor room in early September, after Clean and Restore Vermont confirmed the presence of black mold in the utility room. Since then staff moved upstairs in the town hall and have mostly operated out of the upstairs office and the Collier Room, though Greaves says she had been getting good exercise going down to the vault and back up eight or 10 times a day.
Clean and Serve did the mold mitigation work during October, first sealing the area from the rest of the building, setting up air filtration, then clearing out the utility room, removing moldy wallboard, cleaning and sealing damp areas and finally, repairing what was taken up to clean underneath it.
photo by Paul Fixx
The air tests okay now, says Greaves. The town plans to add air filters in the furnace room, vault and office areas to improve air circulation, she says.
Greaves had said the original quote was for $5,000, but the work will end up costing closer to $8,000, partly due to water infiltration around a ground level window that was admitting groundwater during rain events. That window has been thoroughly sealed to reduce the chance that future rainstorms will bring water into the building.
Greaves says, “I’ll be glad to be back where I’m used to having everything nearby and will be better able to keep an eye on the vault.”
