Stanly school board approves bid for new boilers at North Stanly Middle

North Stanly Middle School will get new boilers after a recent decision by the Stanly County Board of Education, but the school may not get them before cooler weather.

The board unanimously approved a bid from Garmon Mechanical for $156,960 and an alternative bid of $104,480, with an estimated completion of 10 weeks, which would be approximately mid to late October.

Stanly County Schools (SCS) maintenance director Keith Benton said Garmon will have to order the boilers and put them together, which would “push us close to cooling season…to the end of October.”

Benton said the plan is to have one boiler down at a time, fix the other, bring it back online, then fix the first boiler.

When asked by board member Dr. Rufus Lefler about why Garmon was so much lower than P.C. Godfrey ($277,700) and Digitrol ($234,000), Benton said it may have to do with the driving distance.

Board member Dustin Lisk asked about the differences in the base and alternate bids, which Benton said came because the base bid was for a cast iron sectional boiler like what is in place right now. The alternate bid was for a copper boiler which are more readily available. Benton said they later found out the cast iron boilers would be available in the same amount of time.

Cast iron, Benton added, have less noise, are higher quality and have longevity. Answering a question from board member Robin Whittaker, Benton said the boilers should last 40 to 50 years.

“I could say that’s a good thing because at the rate we are going building schools, we’re going to need for it to last that long,” Whittaker said.

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