The heating, ventilation and cooling system in James City County government’s Building F will soon be replaced with a system to promote efficiency and safety.
The county’s Department of General Services has been incorporating Trane brand HVAC equipment into the county’s buildings for the past 10 years; 15 have Trane products to some degree. Staff approached the James City County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday seeking approval for the latest purchase.
Building F, where the board meets, will have Trane air handling units, chillers, pumps, fans, associated duct work and controls reprogramming installed and engineered into the HVAC system.
“This project was originally planned to be done in two fiscal years, but it is more cost effective to complete the project at one time,” reads a staff memo to the board.
Damuth Trane will engineer and install the equipment; the board authorized the project at a cost of $345,523. The company was determined to be “the only source practicably available” according to the memo.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Supervisor Jim Kennedy (Stonehouse) pulled the item from the consent calendar for discussion before voting.
“Are our specifications for air conditioning systems too low? Are we just looking for low bids and we’re paying double later?” Kennedy asked General Services Director John Horne.
Horne said in the past, quality has been sacrificed, but that is something the county is steering away from so keep taxpayers from having to pay more.
“We have had a problem in the past with inadequate attention to the mechanical systems in our buildings. … For the past several years we have very much upgraded our specifications for mechanical systems,” Horne said.
After the brief discussion, the James City County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the new equipment.
