By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Wood County District Public Library is in line to chill out in a new way. The library’s trustees voted Monday to award a bid for $267,650 on a new chiller and condenser to Core Mechanical, of Michigan.
Now the library personnel just hope the old units keep cooling for another summer. The chiller dates to 1974 and the condenser to 1994.
Tom Stuckey of Poggemeyer Design, who presented the bid, said the units should hold out. “I would say they’re on their last legs,” noting they are “‘Band-Aided’ together.”
Library Director Michael Penrod said that there’s a new HVAC unit on the northwest corner of the building that services much of the second floor. So if the existing units went down at least there would be some air circulation in the building.
The chiller has to be custom fabricated for each building. That will take 18 weeks. The library is planning to have the units installed in mid-October, when they hope the air conditioning will no longer be needed, and the heating will not yet be required.
The bid came in under the $269,000 estimate. That however is higher than the $250,000 original estimate. That had to be adjusted because of the increased cost of steel, Stuckey said. “The price is escalating faster than I’ve seen for a while.” He attributed the increase to “some global things going on.”
“So much of our products come from overseas.”
Because of advances in technology the library will be able to use a smaller unit than it has. The reduction is from 135 tons in cooling capacity to 95 tons.
The new units will be more efficient.
Library Director Michael Penrod said they will be able “adjust the pricing of our current contract with Smith-Boughan” because the new equipment will need less attention and is covered by a warranty.
Smith-Boughan will also take care of installing the new controls for the new system.
Stuckey said new wiring will also be needed.
The units will be installed on the roof using a large crane. It will take two weeks to install and then two weeks to calibrate. Stuckey described the operation of taking air from the outside and using it to ventilate and cool the building as “a complex ballet.”
The trustees left open the option of paying $19,000 more to have the work completed in one week.
That would require the contractor to pull workers off other jobs and work around the clock.
Stuckey said that decision does not need to be made until later in August.
Penrod said the consideration would be whether the money was worth it to minimize the disruption for the library patrons.
