ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
The roof at the Seward County EMS building has been dealing with a recurring leak issues related to the air conditioner for the past five to six years, and while the trouble primarily occurs during heavy rains, the situation has now become a significant problem.
At its July 7 regular meeting, the county commission unanimously approved a plan that included the following work:
• Remove pad and dig out area apply seal, replace concrete and recover with dirt – $3,750 to Maestro Concrete of Liberal
• Core drill two wall penetrations and reroute existing PVC vent to south wall – $1,750 to HECO HVAC & Plumbing of Liberal
• Relocate electrical from roof to come in the east wall with one-inch conduit for compressor – $575 to Lobos Electric of Liberal
• Remove and replace the 22-year-old condenser with a new three-ton Trane and matching evaporator coil and run all new lines as listed in previous items – $6,800 to HECO HVAC & Plumbing
The cost of these items is $12,875, and the money will most likely come from the county’s funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
EMS Director John Ralston said up to this point, the situation has been managed with temporary solutions such as spray foam and adding backfill dirt.
“We’ve patched it, we’ve worked it, we’ve done as much as we can to keep it from happening,” he said. “The last people we had come out made a suggestion we dig it out and put a patch over that hole. They think the boots wore out on the pipes that go through the roof, the exhaust pipe and the air conditioner plumbing that comes up through the copper tubing and electrical. All that comes up through a pipe. We’ve added silicon to it. We’ve tried to make it work the best we can, but it’s going to require us to take it out to fix the leak.”
Ralston said a permanent fix now requires removing the air conditioner condenser, excavating the dirt down to the roof and properly sealing the boot where the condenser lines and electrical connections pass through the metal roof, concrete and overlying dirt.
“The suggestion was made to bring it down where we’ve cleared that area in the front of the building, put a pad there and bring it horizontally through the building and seal the roof,” he said. “That makes good sense. Its cost is going to be about the same because we’ve got to tear it out and put it back in.”
Ralston said some costs for the project were separate from others because air conditioning workers did not want to do the electrical work on the building.
“We got the electrician to do that,” he said. “That was $575, and I’ve got two options on that. The first option is to move what we have. The air conditioner that’s up there is an older unit. It’s 22 years old, and that would be $2,000 to relocate it or $6,800 to replace it.”
With a 22-year-old unit, Ralston said there were no guarantees as to how long the current AC unit would last.
“The incentives of doing it now would be it’d be fixed,” he said.
The heater currently in the EMS building is six years old and in good running condition, and Ralston said replacing the AC unit will require changing the condenser in the heater as well as an A-frame because the new unit operates on a different type of Freon.
“It’d put us into the new Freon and a little more energy efficiency if we did it that way,” he said. “The guy who looked at the air conditioner said we could probably move it down there. It might work three years, it might work five. You never know. I’m game with either one.”
Ralston said the choice of relocating or replacing the condenser to repair the problem was in the hands of the commission.
“We need to fix it, but how do you want to fix that now?” he said. “We could roll the dice and see how it happens. All we’d have to do is come back and replace the coil, the compressor and the condenser. If it did fail, cost difference between the two is $4,800. The total cost on using existing equipment’s $8,075. The cost of relocation is $12,875.”
Commission Vice Chairman Steve Helm asked if the project could be paid for out of the ARPA money. Initially, Administrator April Warden said it could not.
“The ARPA money you set aside, you obligated that for different projects,” Warden said. “If we had extra money in there, you could use it towards that, but right now, we still have the outside of the building to go and the painting of that to do. We feel there’s about $15,000 left, and we feel it’s going to take that to cover the outside of the building repairs.”
Helm then asked what work was left on the outside of the EMS building. Ralston said that work primarily includes stucco, filling cracks and painting.
“They’re going to sandblast the railing, paint the railing, do the stucco, paint it, and the outside is done,” Ralston said. “The bay floors are not yet ready though.”
Commission Chairman Scott Carr asked if extra ARPA money could be reallocated. Warden said the commission could choose to go this route.
Commissioner Tammy Sutherland-Abbott made the motion to choose the relocation and repair option with new equipment at a cost of $12,875 to come out of the ARPA funding.
Ralston said he would negotiate use of the ARPA funding for the project and get the project scheduled for the right time.
“We’re not getting as much leaking now, but when you that big rain, it runs in there pretty heavily, so we need to keep an eye on it,” he said. “When we’re doing the other stuff that’s out in front, you can get the pad poured, and we can get stuff ordered.”
Ralston said the roof leak was the last bid awarded on the building. He added the only bids left are for stucco and painting.
“We haven’t got a bid on those, but some of the guys who have been doing the other work are indicating they want to take part in that, and they want to bid on it,” he said. “I think we’re going to get two, three, four good competitive bids like we did on the cement.”
