Council Supports First Phase—

School Board Chair, Council Review Hawley HVAC Project

By John Voket

Explaining that the Hawley School HVAC system has been on and off the town capital project plan for many years, Board of Education Chair Debbie Leidlein sat with the Legislative Council January 18 fielding questions ahead of the unanimous vote to support $350,000 in bonding to initiate the first phase of a heating and air system overhaul.

Following the introduction of the bonding motion, Ms Leidlein said the HVAC work needs to be put in motion, and her board has worked with First Selectman Pat Llodra to phase the project to “better fit the requirements of the CIP” the town’s Capital Improvement Plan.

“The project we bring before you is a little different than the original [plan],” Ms Leidlein said, adding that the project will now keep two boiler rooms instead of consolidating all HVAC equipment into a single room servicing the entire building.

“The idea is, when we go to replace the boilers, the new boiler will be dual fuel and high efficiency. That will reduce the necessity to re-pipe the 1921 section of the building, which will provide a savings,” Ms Leidlein said.

She said the ultimate goal would be to have more strategic control of areas of the school where there are great disparities between hot and cooler pockets, particularly in the winter and in the oldest section of the facility, which is closest to Church Hill Road.

“The idea is also to improve air quality within the school,” Ms Leidlein said.

Councilman Paul Lundquist asked when the projected completion date would be, and Ms Leidlein replied that once approved, the project would go to the town Building and Site Commission to manage. At that point a more firm completion date would be forthcoming.

The school board chair said the Hawley project is now phased over three years of capital planning beginning next year and concluding in the 2014-15 fiscal cycle. But she said that if the completion of the planned 2013 phase provided a solution to the indoor temperature challenges, then the final planned phase might not be required, or a smaller version of the final phase might solve the problem.

Councilman Robert Merola asked that Ms Leidlein determine the difference in cost between a dual fuel boiler and a single fuel unit.

Ms Leidlein said as far as she understood, the dual fuel system would afford the district the option to run the boiler on the least expensive fuel at any given time, and would provide some redundancy if a second remaining boiler malfunctioned or had to come off line.

Mrs Llodra, who was attending the meeting, said the Public Building Commission had already said they would like to see Kaestle Boos of New Britain managing the project, and Ms Leidlein pointed out the group had already done an “exceptional” job managing the middle school roof project. The first selectman also said that any final decisions about air conditioning being added to the project would be forthcoming as project managers and the PBSC began digging into specifics on the project.

With that, a roll call vote provided unanimous endorsement of the bonding.