Gerry School boiler concerns continue to plague Marblehead facilities director

MARBLEHEAD – School officials are keeping their fingers crossed for the 170-student 1906 Gerry School – and its aging furnace.”The Gerry School boiler is my main concern at this time,” Facilities Director Richard Matthews told the School Committee Thursday evening.Matthews’ report reminded committee Chair EuRim Chun that the School Committee and selectmen have filed a statement of interest for the Gerry School for the past several years, while other school projects, including the ongoing attempt to replace the Glover and Eveleth schools, occupied center stage.The Statement of Interest keeps the Gerry School in the running with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) for a future school renovation or replacement project. The MSBA noted that the Gerry has significant facility needs during a 2006 survey of the town schools.According to the statement, the Gerry School is structurally unsound, severely overcrowded and needs replacement of the roofs, windows and boiler.Matthews’ list of completed and needed repairs included $300,000 for the Gerry boiler work and an additional $540,000 to replace the Gerry roof, lower windows, sprinkler system and masonry and repaint the building, noting that a Gerry building project will negate those proposals. The boiler work was proposed for next year. The other projects were proposed for Fiscal Year 2014 and FY’15, two and three years from now.This year Matthews spent $15,000 to replace carpets and upgrade the electrical system at the Gerry, including $9,000 of federal stimulus money.Matthews said he has had to call in repairmen several times this winter to “repair and band aid” various boiler problems, ranging from “the boiler not running to not being able to control temperature properly to major leaks in the boiler itself.”He noted that the repair company offered no guarantee on how long those repairs will last. “We continue to work on these issues and monitor all concerns on a daily basis,” he said.He warned the School Committee to prepare to fund a temporary fix and also have a plan in place to replace the boiler “as soon as this summer,” and his Facilities Maintenance Report for winter included pricing estimates for renting and replacing a boiler, noting that the replacement would have to go through the bidding process.A Feb. 9 letter from Enterprise Equipment Co. of Weymouth bore out Matthews’ statements. “It is our opinion that all of the existing equipment, except the electric water heater, is beyond its expected life and should be replaced,” company representative Matthew Alberti wrote. Alberti estimated the total cost of the replacement at $198,300.Carrier Rental estimated the cost of renting a boiler at $9,400 a month, plus $4,700 for freight shipping and labor.