In its presentation to the council Tuesday night, city officials stressed that time is of the essence to put the gears in motion for three new boilers in Pittsfield High School.
“Well, the time sensitivity is- The contract that was the low bid, in 30 days he can walk away from that bid if he wants to. And the other problem is I need to get this project underway to hopefully get them in and running by the time school reopens up for wintertime. This is a major project, a major project. This is- We're taking three locomotives out of that building, and it's no easy thing. I mean, the buildings built around it. And we have a small portal that we actually will be able to get it out, we'll have to crane everything else. It's a very labor intense, very hard job, and I'm afraid of the timeframe because I can't run those boilers again. They've gone as far as they're going to go,” said Director of Building Maintenance Brian Filiault. “The process of going out, getting an architect, get one on board, then the next process was involved with getting a design company, which is all timed, because you've got to go out to bid for these things. Once we got it in place, the design part of it was huge. I mean, it's a big building, it's an old building, and as we went through the design, we discovered more and more problems with the existing system that was there. So, I mean, it's just- It just ate up time, and that's where we're at. I mean, I would have, I would have actually- My plans were to be as soon as we could shut those systems off, I wanted to demo crew in there to start immediately. We've gone past that timeframe. They've been off for a month, and I'm probably looking at another, if everything goes right, I'm probably looking at another couple three weeks to get somebody in there. It's just a very- It's hard to explain, but it's a very, very difficult job.”
More than 700 students attend PHS, which opened its current building in 1931 and sits in the heart of Berkshire County’s largest community under a golden dome on East Street.
Filiault told the council that the boilers currently keeping the school warm have reached the end of their lifespan.
“There's three locomotives in there,” he explained. “Number two is completely disabled, it's been shut down, it was not- It just doesn't run. Number one is running semi-alright. Number three, we had to do a rebuild in February, an emergency rebuild. We had to weld some steel into it, put it back together, rebrick it, and basically hobbled through this winter. The only blessing thing I had was this winter was very mild, so I didn't have to really run those things hard, but I definitely cannot run them any further. They're done. They've done their tour.”
The initial plan was to use American Rescue Plan Act funding to pay for the project. Pittsfield received over $40 million from the federal pandemic relief package signed by President Biden in March 2021.
“The estimates when we originally started with where were in the realm of what we were thinking, but then, like I said, once we got to design, we went from basically thinking we're going to remove two boilers and put two boilers back in, they’re now removing all three locomotive boilers, putting three boilers back in," said Filiault. "Throughout the building there are some condensate returns, pumps and large units that were, they’ve got to be replaced as well. So, it just ended up exceeding what our cost was.”
The council unanimously approved the borrowing.
