Middle school?s air conditioning project advances

The Fairfield Community School District Board of Directors voted Monday to proceed with a project to air condition Fairfield Middle School.

The next step, as the board discussed during its work session Oct. 18, will be to secure the services of the architecture and engineering firm Shive-Hattery Inc.

Auxiliary services director Fred McElwee said Shive-Hattery is to draft a proposal to move forward with the heating, ventilating and air conditioning project. The proposal is to be brought to the school board in December for review and possible approval.

Chris Nelson, a mechanical engineer with Shive-Hattery, provided updated information about the project, including an updated the cost opinion to reflect 2012 construction costs.

?At this point in time, we can?t attribute any additional costs to inflation over the past year,? Nelson wrote. ?I have, however, made one change to the construction cost opinion. We?ve increased the cost escalation [from 5 percent] to 10 percent. We simply can?t predict the time or impact that we pull out of the recession, but when it happens, it could go quick so we made that change.?

The estimates are that a geothermal system would cost $5,861,760; a heat pump with a cooling tower and boiler would cost $5,054,110; and a central station variable air volume system would cost $5,438,710. The school board members are looking at a geothermal system for FMS.

According to Nelson, if Shive-Hattery began the design in March, the schematic design could be completed in May. Design development could be done in July, and the final construction documents could be completed in September.

For the complete article, see the Friday, Nov. 12, 2010, printed edition of The Fairfield Ledger.