Hot topic: Cold classrooms
By CHERYL ODDEN
One of the hottest topics during a Garrison School Board committee meeting last week was heat – or lack thereof.
Of immediate concern are two classrooms at the high school that currently rely on portable heaters. Due to failure of hot water radiators in the study hall/concession room and the Algebra room, space heaters have become the sole source of heat for the two classrooms.
Attending the Jan. 9 meeting of the school board's Buildings and Grounds Committee were two representatives of H.A. Thompson & Sons. The company is under contract to install a new boiler heating system at the high school. The two, Brad Mann and Woody Seeman, heard concerns of committee members and offered information about how to best solve classroom heating problems at the school. At issue are classroom radiators that are old, inefficient and increasingly unreliable.
Noting that the radiators in both Garrison schools have not been replaced since the schools were built in the early to mid-1950s, Mann said, "It's old equipment." Citing that radiators typically have a lifespan of approximately 25 years, he marveled that they've remained in service for more than half a century.
