At Tuesday’s Windham Town Council meeting, councilors approved two specific upgrades to the Public Works garage including $27,000 for an electrical upgrade and $24,000 for an exhaust system. The upgrade and installations will bring the garage up to fire code and hopefully eliminate problems Public Works has faced in the past, especially during winter months.
“I know it got a little postponed,” councilor Elizabeth Wisecup said of the new exhaust system at the meeting. “But we kept looking at, and I think this is an important piece for people to have some clean air down there.”
As it is now, explains Public Works Director Doug Fortier, a “big fan” on the back wall of the garage draws fumes and unclean air out of the garage.
“If you turn it on, you need to have one of the back doors open or else you’ll kill the furnace,” Fortier said.
Keeping a garage door open is not so much of a problem during the sunny days of summer, but come winter it can, as Fortier says, “get cold in there in a hurry.”
Air Cleaning Specialists of New England have been chosen to install the new exhaust and ventilation system. Fortier said the new system should save them from wasting heat and make a safer work environment for Public Works employees.
As for the upgrade of electrical systems, that job has been awarded to Wilson Electric of Windham. The company will put in a new transfer switch, energy efficient lighting, and an emergency generator.
“There are times we pop breakers just from overuse,” Fortier said of the current electrical system.
Fortier went on to say that, in the past, Public Works has had a hard time “charging” dump trucks – whose diesel engines are plugged in to keep warm through cold nights – because circuit breakers would pop. The new electrical system will hopefully alleviate such problems as well as bring the system up to code. With the upgrade, Public Works will have enough capacity to potentially power all their equipment at once.
At past council meetings, needed repairs and upgrades to Public Works have ben discussed. This past spring, when the council approved $400,000 for purchase of 23 acres next to Smith Cemetery on Gray Road, then-councilor Tom Bartell argued that the money would be better spent on repairs to the Public Works garage that had been postponed.
“We’re still in a 25-year-old building,” Fortier said. “And that’s why these upgrades need to be up to code and create decent working conditions for people who have to work here.”
Fortier calls the upgrades “a critical part” of needed improvements to Public Works, however they have yet to address space needs in the garage and upstairs offices.
The town has talked in the past of constructing a new Public Works building or expanding the existing one. Cramped office space, and a hallway lunchroom shared with bus drivers, have made for close quarters that often confuses the visitors and makes it difficult to concentrate, Fortier said. Fortier hopes that perhaps the council will also look into approving an “inside wash bay” so that Public Works can clean off their trucks and equipment indoors.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
