City Council OK's New HVAC System

Northville’s city council voted Tuesday night to spend an estimated $360,500 on a contract to replace the City Hall’s heating and cooling system.

The council voted unanimously to approve the proposal by the public works department. Director Jim Gallogly said that the system was outdated and that new one could save the city about $60,000 a year from the city’s general fund.

The system will be paid for from money in the public improvements fund.

According to Gallogly’s report to city council, “The heating system overheats the air in the winter and the air conditioning system is required to cool it down to a comfortable level. In the summer, the air conditioning system super cools the air which then requires the boilers (to) turn on to warm the air for office comfort.”

Mike Sellinger, of Livonia-based Sellinger Associates, Inc., whose Livonia company will do the work, explained it this way: “It’s like driving a car full throttle with the breaks on,” he said.  “Somehow the controls are not operating the way they should be.”

The report also shows that both the heating and cooling system run all year-round and have endured considerable wear and tear because of it.

The new system will be a web-based system and can be monitored by city officials from anywhere online. Sellinger advised the city to replace one of its boilers and several components of its air conditioning system.

The project could begin as soon as April with a replacement of the cooling system and the heating system by May or June, according to the report. The whole project could possibly be finished by July.

Previously, the city sought an estimate from Honeywell, which indicated it could do the work for $1 million and later came down to $600,000. Gallogly said the estimate was still too high for the city. Some of those improvements included lighting changes, which Sellinger said is not necessary. Some of Honeywell’s improvements are the same as Sellinger’s.

Sellinger said there will be training for city officials to learn how to use and troubleshoot the system once it is installed.