“I knew we had plumbing issues for sure, because we've been dealing with those a lot at the end of the year,” Joey Foos, Bergwall hall director, said. “And I guess, like, if I were to sit and think about it, I'd be like, well, yeah, that could cause issues with mold. But I mean, certainly no not, not to that level. I don't think anybody actually expected that.”
A team of maintenance workers found mold in Bergwall Hall during a review in late July, Stephen Olson, vice president for finance and CFO at Taylor University, said. They noticed black markings around the outlet covers. After further investigation, which included cutting into parts of drywall and doing testing, they discovered there was a problem.
Taylor University immediately mobilized, sealing off the building and finding a place for Foos and a student who had been living in Berg over the summer to stay, Skip Trudeau, vice president for student development, said.
Keith Cocking, senior director of construction services, was in charge of the project, Olson said. When Bergwall Hall was built in the late ‘80s, it was missing some features that newer buildings have, Cocking said.
“It was built in 1989 and the construction method there doesn't have some of the things that we would do normally in a new construction today,” Cocking said. “And so water was able to get behind the brick, which meant it was inside the wall cavity. So there's moisture trapped, and it can't get back out and it's hard to dry that space out.”
Water got behind the brick because the shelf joint deteriorated, he said. Also known as a plate joint, it connects the dorm's concrete floors to the outside brick wall and is usually covered by masonry or caulk. Mold grew because the water behind the wall couldn’t dry out.
Most of the mold was in the exterior walls.
“The bulk of the problem was in all the exterior walls,” Cocking said. “So pretty much floor to ceiling on the wall on the outside of the building, from inside, had growth on the inside of the wall cavity. So sometimes where the dividing walls between the dorm rooms connected to the outside, some of that had gotten wet a little bit as well, so we had to remove further back into the room.”
It took about 48 hours to go from the initial mold investigation to the tearing out of the drywall, Cocking said. Then, they started the mold remediation process.
Meanwhile, Julia Hurlow, dean of campus life, worked with the hall directors to find temporary housing for early arrivals who would have stayed in Bergwall. Approximately half of the building was early arrivals, she said. They had to make sure students had ID access and room keys to their temporary housing.
Hurlow said they tried to put Bergwall students in air-conditioned space.
“If you're coming back early, especially in August, thinking you're gonna have an air-conditioned building and then be put in non-air-conditioned building, that's a bit jarring,” she said.
Taylor University hired a licensed company that does remediation to clean Bergwall, Cocking said. They removed all of the mold, then sprayed it with something to kill whatever invisible particles were left. Then, they actually sprayed a sealant over the whole wall so nothing else could grow on it, he said.
They also sprayed a closed-cell spray foam between the outer wall and the new drywall, which blocks moisture and acts as insulation, he said.
Because the project had a limited timeline of about three weeks, crews were stacked on top of each other to get the work done as quickly as possible, Cocking said.
“As soon as [the remediation company] finished the floor, and it was safe to be there, the insulation company would come behind them,” he said. “And then the drywall company would come behind the insulation company, and then the painters come behind the drywall company, and so on and so forth. So we just stacked, stacked people, floor by floor, all throughout the building.”
Olson and Trudeau said they replaced the mattresses in Bergwall, cleaned the heating and cooling units in each room and wiped down all of the furniture, whether it was in an affected room or not.
Trudeau kept families updated by periodically sending emails throughout the process. He said he received some clarifying questions, but people generally responded graciously.
The Bergwall personnel assistants (PAs) and discipleship assistants (DAs) worked really hard to get the hall decorated in time, Foos said. He had been worried the construction would create cultural damage within Bergwall, but it seems like the building’s interpersonal dynamic is fine, he said.
“I was really worried about potential, like, significant cultural damage to Berg, and people being very skeptical about living there this year,” he said. “And I mean crossing my fingers, but I don't know, I think the buildings off to a really good start this year, so I would say virtually zero negative impact.”
