The Warren County R-III School District recently completed the bid selection process to move forward with extensive HVAC upgrades at multiple campus locations. School board members voted 7-0 in favor of choosing Integrated Facility Services (IFS) as the contractor for the project during their monthly meeting on March 11.

IFS provided a bid of $1,220,000, eclipsing the lone other bid, $1,367,674 from Daikin. A separate bid was provided for improvements to the wood shop, which was originally omitted. Those bids were $12,150 and $15,291, respectively. 

“They have outstanding references,” said R-III Maintenance Director John Chandler, speaking of IFS. “They have multi-million dollar jobs throughout the St. Louis area, and I can’t say enough good things about them. They stayed within the budget and answered any questions that were brought to them.”

IFS will be making what Chandler calls long overdue repairs and replacements to HVAC units at both Daniel Boone Elementary and Warrenton High School.

“It all comes down to efficiency,” said Chandler. “The efficiency is gone on these things. It’s just a matter of time before these all start staging out.”

At Daniel Boone Elementary, air conditioning units have been overheating for several years, prompting maintenance crew to carry buckets of ice to the rooftop to cool and maintain them. Chandler says the antiquated methods have been used for too long and he is relieved that a cooling tower will be installed at the location.

“We had those things maxed out and were having to manually monitor them every day,” said Chandler. 

At the high school there are multiple units that will be replaced, with others being repaired. Nine McQuay units are the original units installed 24 years ago during the construction of the current high school. Those will be replaced, while Venmar models will be repaired.

“That will save the district a tremendous amount of money on just rebuilding those,” said Chandler.

He said smaller repairs have been made to maintain these units, but funds had not previously been available for replacing them entirely. 

“A heat exchanger on this unit is $20,000,” said Chandler. “We didn’t have the money at the time to replace the entire unit, but three months later the federal government comes through with these funds.”

It’s anticipated the cost of each McQuay unit is between $85,000 to $110,000. Each new unit will include a purification system to help filter air and mitigate the risks of COVID-19.

Until now, the district has had to rely on one unit to compensate for another, working at maximum capacity to heat or cool multiple areas of the school. In particular, cafeteria units were counted upon to control climates on the stage.

“If we didn’t have COVID to disrupt activities held on the stage, we may have been in trouble. We wouldn’t have been able to keep the stage cool,” said Chandler.

He said one of the most disruptive challenges at the high school are problems with the communications systems reading and controlling temperatures in individual classrooms. 

“We’ll be able to schedule things more efficiently, where we can turn things on and off,” said Chandler. “That will be tied into the Ameren rebates program we’re going to be working with. With the new scheduling and upgraded communications system, we’ll be able to shut these units down for a period of time, and the school will be reimbursed money.”

It’s anticipated the district could receive between $5,000 and $7,500 from Ameren through its Demand Response Program.