High River Town Council has approved a budget amendment for a new HVAC unit for the RCMP detachment.
At their latest meeting, council was brief on the detachment's HVAC situation, being that their equipment is nearing its end of life and not functioning properly.
Since the approved 2024 budget did not include any significant repairs or replacement of the A/C units and boilers for the RCMP, council had to vote on a budget amendment totalling $102,500.00.
High River Fire Chief Cody Zebedee was the spokesperson for the RCMP detachment and explained what has gone wrong with the equipment.
"As you are aware, we don't have any major upgrades or replacement of any equipment at the RCMP detachment. Recently we have had issues with the one air conditioning compressor. There is two rooftop units at the detachment, one compressor in one of the units is completely shot, where now it is running on one compressor, the other unit is still functioning," Zebedee explained.
"We have two boilers in the basement, one of the boilers which is not functioning, and the other boiler which has kind of been patchworked to get it to keep functioning at this time."
Zebedee added that in 2018 a facility assessment was done on the building and they were told the equipment would need to be replaced after the 20-25 year life span, and now it looks that that time has come.
Before the detachment looked at the cost of replacing the units, they ventured down other possibilities of fixes to help save on cost.
"A rooftop basic unit repair would be just under $9,000 to repair just the compressors. That is not any coils, that's not any other pieces or components within that unit. That would just get it back up and running and we would still be required in the next few years to be looking at a full replacement of that unit due to its life span," he said.
"The boilers would be sitting at that $10,000, give or take for the repair on those boilers. Which again, we may get them up and running, and then in a couple of weeks, a month, a year, who knows, be requiring additional repairs to those as they are very close to the end of life."
Town administration recommended approving the funding request for the equipment as they will need to bring in a crane to take off the rooftop units. When replaced, the new units will have a life span of 25-30 years.