Boiler Replacement – Energy Performance Story from Q4 2023 => Q1 2024

Summary

Since about 2000, the heating system at the Thornton Central School has been an issue.  First installed in the mid 50s it was updated and modified over the years.  It has broken down many times and on several occasions the school kids were released from school because it was too cold.

In 2023, the school board tried to pass a massive expansion and modernization of the school which included replacing the heating system.  The price tag for that effort was $14.5 million and the effort was defeated at the annual meeting in March 2023.  The school board had no backup plan and scrambled in the summer of 2023 to come up with a solution to fix the problem.  Under the guidance of the SAU, the school board selected Siemens Corporation to conduct an energy audit and propose options.  Note that this was sole source, the school board did not go out for competitive bids.  Of the three options presented by Siemens, they selected the most aggressive and comprehensive plan that included not only a full replacement of the heating system (and switching from oil to propane) and replacing all windows and outside doors with modern energy efficient ones.

The price quoted by Siemens for this effort was $3.455 million, but a month after being awarded the contract, Siemens revised the price to approximately $4.4 million.  To finance this, the school board decided to forego a vote from the townspeople and go with a lease for 20-years and an interest rate of 5.59% at a cost of about $317,000 a year.  At the February 7, 2024 school board meeting they announced they were not going with the lease, but rather with a bond, debt.  The interest rate on the debt would be around 3.5% saving the taxpayers over a million dollars over 20-yrs.

At the right are three blog posts that give details on the process.  It makes for interesting reading and gives insight into how the school board works.

Here are the pertinent documents related to the project

In the summer of 2023, the SAU put out a Request for Qualifications to the energy audit.  Here are the three responses.

• 2023 10-29 Siemens RFQ2023
• 2023 10-29 Honeywell RFQ
• Thornton RFQ EEI Response

In October 2023 Siemens made their first presentation to at the school committee meeting.  Here is their presentation.

• 2023 10-23 Siemens presentation to the School Board

Here is the signed contract with Siemens.

• SiemensContractForEnergyAddition – January 2024