September 2009 Featured Story
Alternative school gets alternative energy upgrade
Over the past couple of years, Kosciusko REMC energy advisor Carol Presley has offered Tippecanoe Valley School Superintendent Brett Boggs a number of ways the corporation’s high school and middle school could improve energy efficiency.
This summer, some of those ideas became part of a major renovation project at a school not previously a part of their conversations. But it was a school building, coincidentally, which still holds a lot of memories for both: Both Presley and Boggs attended school there during their respective grade school years.
The Burket Education Center, the corporation’s alternative school for the past seven years, underwent an energy makeover from top, with a new reflective white roof, to bottom with a new geothermal heating and cooling system that replaced an old gas-fired steam boiler. The former elementary school, built in the early 1960s, also received new windows, entry vestibule and other improvements projected to save the school system $5,000 a year in energy costs. The alternative school, serving some 50 students this year, “has been a real savior for some kids who otherwise would not have graduated high school,” Boggs said.
In the photos, Alan Stewart, program manager with contractor A. Hattersley & Sons Inc., shows the inside of one of the vertical ventilating units that conditions fresh air for each classroom. At right, Stewart, Presley and Boggs talk about the project outside the school. The geothermal’s horizontal field is buried in the empty lot north of the school, behind Stewart and Presley’s right shoulder.
Photos by Richard G. Biever
Written By: eceditor
Date Posted: 8/31/2009
Number of Views: 295
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