Elizabethtown board hears three HVAC retrofit options, ESCO urges Feb. 24 decision to meet summer construction window

Quandell Energy Services presented to the Elizabethtown Area School District board on Wednesday evening, outlining the condition of East High School's heating and cooling systems and three options to replace or modernize them.

The firm’s lead engineer, Sean Nicholson, said the boilers and air-cooled chiller were installed during a 2011 renovation and are now near mid-to-late life. Nicholson said humidity loggers showed many classrooms exceeding recommended relative-humidity ranges, with nearly 60% of logged times in ranges the presenters flagged as uncomfortable or concerning for condensation and equipment corrosion.

"When we get into that orange and red area, that's where we start being concerned about condensation on the walls, equipment, furniture, and really having humidity concerns with those spaces," Nicholson said.

Quandell laid out three options: (1) central plant replacements with recommissioning of terminal units, an approach the presenters said would be least disruptive and has an estimated 20-year ownership cost of approximately $7.3 million; (2) a central geothermal heat-pump plant that replaces the air-cooled chiller and reduces boiler reliance, at roughly $7.2 million over 20 years; and (3) a room-level individual geothermal heat-pump strategy that the presenters estimated at about $6.6 million over 20 years and described as having the highest energy savings and a more complete system replacement.

Rob Strickler of Quandell emphasized schedule constraints: the ESCO asked for a board decision at the district’s Feb. 24 voting meeting to allow time for engineering, bidding and permitting so work could begin in May and proceed through summer construction.

The presenters also described the district’s options for funding. They said the state’s school facilities grant program has an early March application deadline with awards not expected until September, which would generally make that grant ineligible for projects with costs incurred this summer. On the federal side, Quandell noted direct-pay tax credits available under the Inflation Reduction Act for non-taxable entities and said the district would need to file required IRS forms to claim them.

Board members pressed for more detail on replacement and lifecycle costs, long-term annual measurement-and-verification fees for the guaranteed energy-savings agreement (GESA) and the potential to tie a future new building to a geothermal field. Quandell said the firm assumes measurement-and-verification administration typically costs $3,000–$5,000 per building per year and that geothermal wellfields have service lives on the order of 50 years.

The board did not vote on the ESCO contract at the workshop; staff and the ESCO will return with final pricing in March, and the administration placed the item for decision on the Feb. 24 agenda.

If the board votes to proceed, the presenters said, the district would enter construction and then a measurement-and-verification phase to confirm guaranteed energy performance.