Montgomery County supervisors okay HVAC contract – KMAland

(Red Oak) -- Another upgrade is set for the Montgomery County Courthouse--but this project is focused on the building's interior.

At its regular meeting Tuesday morning, the county's board of supervisors awarded the contract for the courthouse's heating and air conditioning renovation project to Kale Heating and Air Conditioning and Allensworth Heating and Cooling, with a combined bid of more than $597,000. The board also approved the companies' alternative bid for installation of new windows totaling $40,620. The windows will replace glass removed for individual air conditioning units in the courthouse's offices. The supervisors selected Kale and Allenworth's joint bid over one from another interested company, Complete Air Care of Red Oak. Supervisors Chair Bryant Amos tells KMA News the other bid was rejected because of discrepancies in the bid documents.

"The bid that was really disqualified," said Amos, "was in the amount of $1,840 lower. But, because of not having a bid bond in the packet, it pretty much disqualified it. And, there was a discrepancy in how the numbers were presented. One number was written out, and when you write out the number in words, it was written in a different number. So, we had some problems with that bid. Unfortunately for them, a couple of mistakes kind of put them out of the picture."

Amos says work is expected to begin by June 1st, with the heating portion of the new system up and running by October 1st. He says the new system will be installed in phases.

"We're replacing an old boiler system," he said, "and this will basically be a coolant system. They're trying to use the existing boiler pipe holes and conduits to run their lines. But, there will be some hammer drilling, and things like that going on. So, it will be kind of inconvenient for a while. There will be some noise. They're trying to cooperate on court dates, so they won't be doing the louder things then."

Amos, however, says the project's end result will be well worth any inconveniences.

"We should have a much more uniform heat throughout the building," said Amos. "If one room is too hot, and another room needs heat, it will actually move the heat from one room to the other. We could also be cooling one room, and heating another--like, for instance, our I-T room, where we have all the equipment, and the heat in there. Sometimes, that heat will be able to be distributed elsewhere. Also, there will be times that you would have to cool that room while you're heating the rest of the building."

In order to cover the project's costs, Amos says the county plans to issue bonds, as well as use money earmarked in the county's budget.

"We can bond on our own, without a vote, for $600,000," he said. "And, we are going to use those bonds. But in the first year of it, we have set aside money to make that payment, without raising our debt levy portion for taxes. Then, we'll be able to go from year to year on our debt levy, to see what we need to do."

The HVAC renovation follows on the heals of last year's replacement of the venerable courthouse's roof.

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Montgomery County supervisors okay HVAC contract - KMAland