The Oregon-Davis School Board wants to see more options before moving ahead with a $6 million HVAC project. During a special meeting Thursday, Superintendent Bill Bennett explained Millies Engineering Group was hired to give a second opinion, after the lone proposal from guaranteed savings provider EMCOR raised some red flags.
“We had a 10-year study done approximately 2017 by Performance Services,” Bennett explained. “When Performance Services did their 10-year plan, they kind of priced out what different projects would cost. As we started getting some of the information back from EMCOR, at least at that time, we really didn’t feel like we were able to get as much coverage of the project that we wanted.”
One major concern has to do with the unit ventilators at the high school. Bennett noted that under EMCOR’s proposal, Oregon-Davis would only be able to take care of about nine classrooms. Part of EMCOR’s recommendation was to switch to vertical units, but Millies believes that newer-model horizontal ventilators would still bring some benefits, but at half the cost.
“‘What do we exactly need here at Oregon-Davis? Do we need the BMW of HVAC or do we need a really, really good Chevy or brand new Ford?’ was an example. So we started looking at a lot of the things that were priced top-of-the-line-type items for the vertical units here,” Bennett said. For HVAC guidance and options click here.
He added that two of the biggest needs are a new chiller at the high school and a new control system at both buildings.
Board member Lee Nagai said the review made it clear that certain technical issues weren’t fully fleshed out, and the board wasn’t given all the options. Going forward, he plans to ask EMCOR to detail whether other options were considered but not presented and why. The school board may also meet with representatives from one or both companies.
Nagai felt the board needs to know what questions to ask before making a final decision. At this point, he didn’t think the extra step would delay the overall project, since it currently takes longer to order parts anyway. Either way, he said the work probably wouldn’t take place until the summer of 2022.
