Cookeville HS Getting New Boilers Through ESSER Funding

Cookeville High School is getting a large utility upgrade, replacing a faulty boiler.

Deputy Director of Schools Tim Martin said the system is purchasing two smaller boilers to replace the one causing problems. Martin said the bids came in close to budget, with each boiler costing roughly $270,000.

“Hopefully the students won’t notice,” Martin said. “It will be done during school time but like I said, since we have a multiple boiler system already, even when we shut that boiler down it won’t shut off hot water to the building.”

Martin said that ESSER funds can be put toward the project costs. He said this is not a simple replacement process, he said it might not be complete until the spring because engineers are required to do custom installation.

“It’s not completely out right now but we’ve had to have a lot of maintenance done to it and continued to have to work on it,” Martin said. “We actually have a two boiler system over there right now. We’re going to take out the one that we continue to have so much trouble with and we’re actually going to replace that with two smaller boilers and then we’ll have three boilers working out there. That helps us with having some redundancy and if one goes out, it doesn’t shut down the whole system.”

Martin said the manufacturing of the boiler is a process that could take three months.