Facilities Management to request approval for $1.7 million in boiler upgrades
Facilities Management is looking to spend almost $2 million to upgrade the university's steam energy-generating boilers.
Steve Lawrence, vice president of Facilities Management, said they are planning to ask for the funds at the Board of Trustees meeting in February. Installation of gas burners school’s boiler four is next, following about $640,000 in other repairs during winter break.
“(Facilities Management) is going to go to the board in February and request the approval for $1.7 million to install a gas burner in boiler number four,” he said.
The money would come out of Facilities Management's already pre-approved budget for the year. It awaits permission from the board to move forward with construction.
Boiler is limited to the burning of wood chips. Converting this boiler to natural gas would create a redundancy in the university's boilers, and assist in the production of heat for students in the long run, Lawrence said,
The university would pay no additional dollars to fund the project with Facilities Management, having funds coming from surplus funds in the Central Energy Budget.
“We’ll fund (Boiler fours’s gas burners) totally out of our existing carry forward funds,” Lawrence said. “That assumes the board approves us though.”
As of now, only Boilers one, two and five produce steam which is used to heat water for campus-wide use in showering, laundry and preparing food. This boiler five alone produces 85,00 pounds of steam per hour.
130,000 pounds per hour of steam was the peak use last year during winter break.
The problem with boilers one and two, Lawrence said, is that they are 54 years old.
“We would like to have another boiler available,” he said.
If the Board of Trustees approves Facilities Management for building, the project could take anywhere from 12 to 14 months in order to receive and install the parts necessary to upgrade the boiler.
Lawrence said plans will be delivered to the board at next month’s budget meeting on Feb. 19.
