FPS Building Has Serious Leaking Problem

By Gordon HopkinsThe roof of the 47 Building, which belongs to Fairbury Public Schools, is leaking and has been for some time. The school is working with the manufacturer of the materials in the roof to find a solution.Superintendent Dr. Devin Embray discussed the matter at a meeting of the FPS Board of Education Monday evening, September 8, 2025. That meeting was held in the 47 Building. Embray noted FPS gets significant amount of use out of the building, “We have this building that we’re in right now. It still has a high functional use for the district. We use the gym in here, plus we have our district offices in here. We have our alternative high school program in here. We have a training room, conference room that we use in here as well. The north end of this building is where we store all of our paper products and cleaning supplies for bulk. So, it’s a building that’s still used heavily by the district.” “The concern is the roof. There’s five sections of the roof,” said Embray. “Four out of the five, I think, are failing to some degree, and some way more than others. We had the roof infrared scanned, and there is mold in the roof. We just don’t know how bad it is in terms of, does it go all the way to the deck? Does it compromise all the insulation?” Embray said leaks in the building are substantial, “We have 20 to 40 buckets every time we have a big rain somewhere in the gym, catching water on the stage, catching water up in second floor. Here in this corner, we’re starting to see leaks. So, in the locker room areas, it’s kind of a flood area in there as well.”Repairs to the roof will be expensive and Embray cited the roof as a major reason for a prosed increase in the levy, “So, two things. We can either let the roof fall in and then go to the community and say, ‘We need a bond issue to build a new building,’ or we can fix our roof and make it a very nice roof, so that it’s not leaking, so that we can keep this building functional moving forward. The concern is we just don’t have the dollars in our current budget to make that happen.”Embray said, “The roof estimates are coming in. We had one company that gave us an estimate two years ago at around $800,000, $850,000.The roof is still under warranty and, according to Embray has been repaired multiple times but continues to leak. “Currently, we are trying to resolve it while it is under warranty,” Embray told FJN after the meeting. “We are currently considering our options and trying to work with Tremco on solutions, however, we can’t continue to allow our roof to continually leak after numerous warranty repairs over the past several years.”Tremco is an Ohio-based company that provides commercial sealants and waterproofing for construction and is the manufacturer of the roofing materials. Embray explained, “Since early in the roof’s replacement, it has been leaking. The warranty runs out in 2027. They have been doing warranty work for several years several times within a year since it was installed according to what I am being told.“

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