A busted chiller at the courthouse will likely cost the county nearly $200,000 to replace, and some County Commissioners wonder if something could have been done to prevent this. 

At the county Budget and Finance Committee meeting Thursday night, commissioners had to approve an appropriation memo to repair the chiller at the courthouse. If the coil only needs to be replaced it would be cheaper, but the entire tower may have to be replaced. The best case scenario would be around $70,000 and the worst case would be $200,000. 

“If we ordered it today we would get it in the second week of May if we had to do the whole tower,” said Finance Department director Justin Cotten.

“There is no air conditioning in the courthouse until you fix this,” added County Executive Terry Bell.

“So I guess ESG (Energy Savings Group) missed this,” said Commissioner Carl D. Bouldin.

“They talked about the tower,” said Cotten.

“They inspected it and said they felt it was good,” said Commissioner Scott Rubley. 

The current chiller froze and burst when temperatures plummeted.

Commissioner Tommy Savage asked what they will do to keep it from happening again and asked if there were any shutoffs in place. 

“I do know that there were no shutoffs. Greg Bowdoin mentioned to me in passing today they had to crimp a line to get it to shut off,” said Cotten.

Cotten said a line was bent and zip tied together because there was not a shutoff.  

“Somewhere some maintenance wasn’t done apparently,” said Bouldin.

“I hate that we have to do this, but this is something that we have to do. We don’t have a choice to do it,” said Commissioner Cole Taylor.

$150,000 will need to be appropriated from bond money and there is an additional $50,000 in the Building and Grounds budget for unique circumstances that can be used for it.

“I think looking back, the ESG project was overwhelming and it was hard for anyone to see everything. This thing was far enough in its life cycle I think we should have insisted it be replaced, but we didn’t,” said Rubley.

Executive Assistant Jason Hillis said when ESG looked at the chiller three years ago it was in good condition. 

“If it froze and burst because of a maintenance problem it very well could have been in good shape, but after 20 years not too many things like that are in good shape or are running efficiently,” said Bouldin. “If it froze and busted it was probably due to some maintenance error we overlooked, or maintenance has overlooked. When something like this happens, you usually don’t let it happen twice.”

“Yeah, $150,000 is a big lesson,” said Rubley.

The motion to appropriate the funds unanimously passed.