Kutztown Area School Board discussed and decided on the best course of action to take regarding one of the two boilers that are running in Kutztown Elementary School during the Oct. 16 school board meeting.
“The KES boiler has needed significant repairs, it’s coming near end of life,” said Kutztown Superintendent George Fiore. “Typically these boilers last around 20 years.”
The boiler in question is 17 years old.
“No, it doesn’t mean they die on day number one after those 20 years,” said Board President Carl Ziegler. “It does mean in terms of planning, you might want to keep in mind that it’s a possibility.”
Fiore presented two options, replace the equipment with a new boiler, or repair the existing boiler. According to Fiore, the repair of the machinery would cost around $9,000.
“We don’t know what happens when we open it [the boiler] up,” said Fiore. “Sometimes when you start to replace gaskets, you may find other issues. We’ve been doing repairs for the boiler at KES in the past.”
Opting to repair the equipment ran the risk of the project becoming larger and more expensive than was intended.
“There are two identical boilers in the basement of Kutztown Elementary School, the gaskets of one of them went bad in February of last year,” said Treasurer David Miller.
Miller said the school district arranged for repairs to be made to fix the gaskets.
“They pretty much knew that the gaskets were going to be bad when they got there. They also found some problems with the expansion tank,” said Miller. “A project that started out roughly at an estimate of $9,000 ended up costing $12,500. What we have right now is pretty much the same situation with the other boiler.”
According to Miller, the boiler that was repaired is currently operating as it should be, though, it was mentioned that over time the cost for maintaining repairs will increase.
Kutztown School Board voted to replace the aged boiler, so action could be taken before the winter starts. The vote to replace the boiler was unanimous. All labor will be done over winter break so as not to disturb the flow of the school day.
