Cookeville High, White Plains Chillers To Be Replaced

Chillers at Cookeville High School and White Plains Academy set to be replaced as have both reached the end of the life cycle.

Deputy Director of Schools Tim Martin said both chillers have had periods of downtime and have required expensive repairs and maintenance. He said those machines that get cooler air to classrooms become even more important as temperatures rise outside.

“When we start back in late July and regular session the whole month of August and September and it’s just really hot out there, nobody wants to sit in the classroom studying when it’s 95 degrees and high humidity,” Martin said.

Martin said the chiller at Cookeville High School is the original machine that was installed in 1996. He said the White Plains chiller is at least 23 years old and the life expectancy of these machines is normally just 15 to 20 years. He said the large machines require custom installation and will likely take 30 months before they arrive.

“We have long-range plans and it doesn’t always come out exactly the exact year we think it will,” Martin said. “But we know within, usually within a two or three-year time period, you know, we have these things listed in our long-range plans of when we think we’re probably going to have to replace items like this.”

He said the Cookeville High School chiller will cost some $572,000 and the White Plains Academy chiller will cost some $162,000. He said the current chillers will continue to run while the system awaits the arrival of the replacements. He said it would be far more challenging to have to pull some $500,000 out of their back pocket should they wait until a chiller goes out completely.

“We don’t want to have that downtime, especially in the middle of, you know, we run so many summer programs now that our schools are just about open year-round,” Martin said.