April 23, 2025
By: Dwayne Page
Fixing the heating and cooling system at the courthouse.
During Tuesday night’s county budget committee meeting, County Mayor Matt Adcock requested $600,000 from the capital projects fund in the 2025-26 budget for a long-term solution to a long-standing problem.
For now, County Mayor Adcock said the courthouse heating and cooling units have been temporarily repaired. But instead of replacing the 55-year-old chiller boiler system, he said an HVAC engineer has taken a look and determined that the existing one can be fixed.
“I asked Lee Company to give us an estimate,” said County Mayor Adcock. “They came and got this system running again. We had no heat and cooling for a while. The gentleman from Lee Company came down, looked at it, and said I know exactly what your problem is and I think I can get it fixed (temporarily) by the end of the week. On Thursday he showed up, spent some time down there that morning, got it running, and its been running ever since. However, it is not a permanent solution. We still have the same issues we have had for the last 15 or 20 years with the system not operating correctly,” explained Adcock.
“To get a more permanent solution an HVAC engineer came and looked at the boiler chiller system and gave us a rough estimate of approximately $550,000 for the mechanical and controls components and he listed the scope of work and things that need to be replaced. He said the system we have here works but its just old and needs to be upgraded. He said we have a great system and that Tennessee Tech runs on the same system with a boiler and chiller. It runs hot and cold water through the system. He said the pipes are corroded and the fans are shot and that it has not been maintained since it was built. He is talking about gutting out what we have and replacing it with new parts. He said it would be cheaper to stick with the same boiler system that we have than to switch to an HVAC or split units. I know how people might perceive this but its only an estimate. This doesn’t mean we will go with Lee Company. This project has to be competitively bid out. We have a private act that anything over $10,000 has to be bid out but Lee Company is coming and doing another estimate. They will have somebody to help me with the drawings and schematics, but it hasn’t been bid out yet. We don’t know what the total cost will be. It might be less than $550,000 or it might be more and that’s why I am asking for $600,000 in the budget but hopefully it will be less than that,” said County Mayor Adcock.
For more than five decades, the present-day DeKalb County Courthouse has served as home to the court system, offices of local public officials, the election commission, veteran services and for meetings and other purposes.
Built in 1970 through the federal model cities program, the courthouse has served the county well and remains an active place, especially on days when court is in session, but it has also often become an uncomfortable environment due to a faulty chiller boiler heating and cooling system which causes portions of the building to be too hot in the summer and too cold during winter.
Its been a periodic problem for several years and the county has spent significant time and money trying to fix it. But recently the system completely failed and needed immediate attention at a time when replacement parts for it are no longer easy to come by.