TMG Completes $7 million in School Construction over Eight Weeks

In the 10 short weeks of summer, TMG’s regional team completed over $7 million in school construction projects, often called “summer slammers.”

Nearly every school has a list of improvements, renovations, and repairs and often summer provides the only window of time to make those improvements while the students and faculty are away. Summer slammers usually involve renovations, repairs, upgrades, preventative maintenance, classroom conversions, etc. Because of the limited time frame of these projects, extensive planning is required to ensure successful completion.

In the summer of 2017, TMG completed approximately:

  • $700,000 in construction for Montgomery County Public Schools
  • $1,000,000 in construction for Arlington Public Schools
  • $1,300,000 in construction for Frostburg State University
  • $2,000,000 in construction for Loudoun County Public Schools
  • $2,000,000 in construction for Prince George’s County Public Schools

Samples of these “summer slammer” projects include:

Montgomery County Public Schools Waters Landing Elementary School: TMG demolished a storage room door opening to accommodate a freezer unit and then installed a new walk-in cooler. To accommodate the outdoor condensing units, work included roof patching, ceiling modifications, and two doors installation.

Montgomery County Public Schools Watkins Elementary School: TMG partially renovated the school kitchen and installed a new walk-in cooler and freezer. Work associated with this installation included the demolition of a storage room, cutting back a partial height partition, roof patching to accommodate outdoor condensing units, and ceiling modifications.

Montgomery County Public Schools Westbrook Elementary School: TMG was tasked with Roof Painting and Vent Repairs. Renovations began by pressure washing all areas to be painted, painting the school’s dormers with two coats of Vinyl Paint, painting the school’s two roofs with Coraflon ADS Epoxy Primer & Topcoat with ADS s/g, and then straightening bent roof vents.

Montgomery Public Schools Whetstone Elementary School: For this design-build project, TMG demolished an exterior wall to accommodate a new walk-in cooler. TMG poured a new concrete pad for the cooler, built a brick enclosure with custom gate, and installed new exterior door.

Prince George’s County Public Schools Gwynn Park High School: TMG installed a Home Economics class, Cosmetology class, Café, and renovated a Hotel Management class. To accommodate a large amount of additional plumbing, this project required trenching. Additionally, the county requested grease interceptors for the Home Economics class. Superintendent, George Cois, ensured careful layout was performed to line up grease interceptors to the sink base-less than 1” of tolerance was possible under some sinks. TMG and our subcontractors worked aggressively to coordinate, manage and complete the project in eight weeks! TMG substantially completed the work before the start of the new school year and is just wrapping up some punch list items.

Prince George’s County Public Schools Allenwood Elementary School: TMG installed a central a/c system in an entire elementary school. Because the existing ceiling tile was ACM, TMG had to overcome the challenge of phasing the asbestos contractor to close off certain areas of the school in order to keep the mechanical contractor working. Due to this challenge, workers couldn’t pop tiles to see duct runs in advance, and had to come up with creative solutions to make the duct fit in certain areas. Additionally, TMG was presented with a design challenge; matching the existing AHU’s size and weight in order to cut costs. Just getting the AHU into the boiler room took some thought. TMG decided on a cost-effective solution-to bust out a wall adjacent to the room, install a proper header in the masonry opening, and performed a successful startup on August 23. The deadline was September 5.