School has HVAC dilemma

DUNKIRK — Jay School Board members tried to get their arms around heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning issues at West Jay Middle School Thursday.
And while various options were reviewed, it’s still not clear how the work will be paid for.
Board members voted 6-0 in October in support of fixing the school’s HVAC problems but also voted 5-1 to defer the work for up to two years when retirement of a bond issue would reduce the school corporation’s overall indebtedness.
Board president Greg Wellman has put the issue back on the agenda for the board’s Feb. 27 meeting.
On Thursday afternoon, six of seven board members gathered in the library at West Jay to meet with engineers and school maintenance personnel in hopes of better understanding the situation.
Board member Jim Sanders was absent.
“I just wanted to give the board an overview,” said superintendent Tim Long, who had arranged the meeting. “We started down this path about six years ago.”
During that time, Long noted, extensive work on HVAC systems has been done on Jay County High School and all seven elementary schools. The West Jay system is the last remaining project to be addressed.
As described by engineers Woody Holm of Stair Associates Inc. and Clay Davis of Validated Custom Solutions, West Jay’s problems are due to the system’s age and unique problems related to the quality of the Dunkirk water supply.
Installed nearly 30 years ago, West Jay’s HVAC system is a water-source heat pump system. Water is circulated through pipes in the building, making use of heat pumps in cold weather and a cooling tower during hot weather. Because water evaporates from the cooling tower, new water is periodically introduced to the system.
That has been a problem over time because scale has been deposited in the piping system due to the poor quality of water from Dunkirk’s municipal water plant.
The school even has its own water treatment system to treat the city water before it is introduced to the pipes, but the scaling troubles persist.“The city has not supplied us with good, clean water,” said Jay Schools maintenance man Dennis James, who has worked extensively to keep the West Jay system going.
James described the current system as being on the verge of failure.
Noting that the average life of a heat pump is 15 years, he said, “We’ve already out-run our life. … We have a cooling tower over here that’s leaking. … I seriously doubt we can go — maybe — another year.”
James said in recent years maintenance crews have spent about one day a week working on West Jay to keep it heated and cooled. In one incident this school year, three classrooms at the middle school lost heat in a single day.
One option would be to replace the cooling tower and heat pumps over time, but Long noted that would not solve the scaling problems in the pipes. And it wouldn’t address the need to improve ventilation at the school, which does not meet new state fresh air guidelines.
Replacing the current system could cost in the range of $1.3 million to $1.6 million and could require bonding to pay for the work.
If that route were taken, engineers have urged Jay Schools to look at installing a geothermal system, with an extensive vertical field drilled in an area north of the school.
A pure geothermal system would be a closed loop, with no additional water needed from the city because there would be no cooling tower or evaporation.
Wellman pressed the engineers on whether geothermal was practical for a building of West Jay’s size, noting that as recently as a few years ago the board was told it didn’t make sense for JCHS.
“In the last 10 years, perception has changed dramatically,” said Holm. Buildings larger than JCHS are now successfully operating on geothermal heating and cooling. “The systems work. … We’ve got so many happy clients.”
Holm indicated his firm has been involved in 25 such projects in recent years. He said the only school he has heard of that has encountered problems is Lancaster Elementary School in Wells County, where a horizontal field was developed instead of a vertical field. Holm’s company was not involved in that project.
Going with a geothermal system, however, requires a larger up-front cost of about $200,000. Holm said there’d be a 15-year expected payback.
“It’s a pretty solid investment,” added Davis.
One other option would be to install a hybrid system, which involves a geothermal component as well as a traditional boiler and cooling tower.
“The system is one issue,” said Long. “How to fund it is another.”[[In-content Ad]]