GUILFORD – Concrete and excess moisture don’t mix, just ask the Town of Guilford. The combination has led to cracks in the concrete floor in the town’s new highway garage and, while the problem was identified a month and a half ago, they are still waiting for the project’s engineers to advise them on how to rectify the issue.

According to Building Committee Chairperson Sue McIntyre, the cracking is due to the presence of water under the vapor barrier which separates the concrete slab from an underlayer of gravel below. There was a month delay, she said, between the placing of the vapor barrier and when the floor was actually poured.

“In that time delay, the thinking is that’s when the water got in,” McIntyre told members of the Guilford town council at Wednesday night’s town meeting.

“Frost got through where there was no insulation,” explained Jeff Fuller from the Town Highway Department. As a result, hairline cracks appeared around the perimeter of the floor.

Keystone & Associates, the architectural consulting firm handling the project, was notified of the problem when it was first noticed, McIntyre said, but to date they have not received the firm’s recommendation for “appropriate remediation steps.”

“We’re going to try to get action out of Keystone this week,” said McIntyre.