BY MEGHAN FLYNN Garden City Telegram
Heating, ventilation and air conditioning system issues at the Law Enforcement Center and the next steps to fix them, were discussed at the Finney County Commission’s work session on Jan. 18.
Work on the LEC’s HVAC system was included in the county-wide sales tax question approved by voters in the Nov. 2, 2021, general election.
Rex Harrison, Finney County Facilities Supervisor, said the problem with the HVAC system originates with the between 70-80 heat pump units in the ceiling and the chiller on the roof.
Accessibility and the age of the equipment is the issue, Harrison said.
“The new stuff is supposedly more efficient, but it’s pretty difficult to get up inside the concealed ceiling in the jail to work on the heat pump units,” he said. “They’re all concealed, and you have to basically break it to get up there and work on it.”
Additionally, circuit boards are constantly going out, the equipment is not made for cold weather.
Mike Warren, Finney County Sheriff, said there are also constant water issues.
“I have an evidence room that I’m being told we probably won’t even be able to use some of it just because of the water leakage,” he said. “We haven’t lost any cases because we (haven’t had) any water damage on any evidence. With the Police Department vacating their evidence room we’re taking it over, there’s a place back there they said is just not usable just because of the water that’s leaked there in the past.”
Harrison said there are a lot of heat pump units in the ceiling that his department has had to evacuated and put somewhere else because the heat pumps are right next to where plumbers put the water in and electricians put their conduits in. His department couldn’t access the heat pumps, so they had to move them somewhere they could access them.
The heat pumps add to the water issues, Harrison said. Drainpipes are another contributing factor.
“Sometimes it’s condensation,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of condensation in the county attorney building. You’re going to have condensation no matter where we’re at because of the constant climate change.”
Commissioner Bob Kreutzer, said he had a lot of personal involvement with the LEC when it was being built and believes the equipment is at the end of its lifetime.
“One of the biggest downfalls of the era that you purchased it is that if it gets below about four degrees, it has a real time heating, and in our part of the world we have days like that— we don’t have a lot of them, but we do have days,” he said. “Now, the new technology that came out in the last year, it’s good down to about 11 below, which is significantly different. Even the same brand that you have now will do that.”
Kreutzer said the next step above is using hot and chilled water as a backup, but the problem in the jail is there’s limited space, only about a foot to two feet of clearance from concrete to the fixed, secure ceiling where the equipment has to go in. They’re limited in terms of their options for updates.
“Obviously, you can stay with boilers and chillers and do away with a heat pump and do that, but you also have a tremendous indoor air quality requirement so that all of your people are very comfortable in their environment,” he said. “So, getting fresh air to all of those spaces is very difficult.”
Going out for requests for qualification is a very important step, Kreutzer said. It should be the next one taken, but the county needs to realize that because of the nature of the industry right now any quote that was taken a year or so ago, it’s probably gone up about 20%.
“As you look at this project, as we do, we’re going to need to make some hard decisions, but I wouldn’t go into it with strictly allowing someone to bid this kind of system,” he said. “I would look at some alternatives and certainly look at people who have worked on that kind of retrofit project and engineered it as to what can be done.”
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