FARMINGTON – Franklin County commissioners voted Friday to spend $28,775 to buy a new air-cooling unit to replace a broken system at the county jail.
The money for the Trane air-cooled chiller will come from the county’s $50,000 contingency fund.
The time frame for the installation depends on whether the unit, which is due to come off the manufacturer’s assembly line July 20, has been spoken for or whether another specialized unit has to be built. That could mean six to seven weeks before it is available to be installed, jail Assistant Administrator Carl Stinchfield said Friday.
“I really don’t know,” he said.
Jail officials had contacted heating, ventilation and air conditioning contractors seeking sealed bids after the air-cooling unit broke down at the Farmington detention center June 26.
Temperatures had reached 85 to 90 degrees during that week, and one evening went up to 93 degrees in a cell block.
Federal and state jail standards mandate that temperatures in the living spaces be maintained between 65 and 85 degrees, jail officials said.
An inmate had complained to the Maine Department of Corrections about the heat, Stinchfield said. A state compliance officer visited the jail Thursday, he said, and said the situation is definitely beyond standard temperature, but the compliance officer was satisfied that jail officials were doing all they could to remedy the situation.
Jail Administrator Sandra Collins also noted that the officer found that staff offices and some other areas that staff work in were hotter than the inmates’ living quarters.
The compliance officer was not available for comment Friday.
Stinchfield said none of the contractors that showed interest in bidding had submitted a sealed quote by Thursday’s deadline. The county did have a written proposal from Mechanical Services Inc., which it submitted when the company determined the compressor failed in the unit, Stinchfield said.
The company said it would cost $14,475 to repair the unit and $28,775 to replace it, Stinchfield said. Jail officials and the company recommended the system be replaced due to its age.
The cooling unit would also be able to handle an expansion of living quarters for 12 people in the recreation room if that is needed in the future, Stinchfield said. A new covered recreation area would be built outside, he said.
Commissioner Fred Hardy of New Sharon said he would be skeptical of repairing the old unit, which had exceeded its life expectancy of 15 to 20 years. The jail was built with that type of unit, which also provides a balance to the heating and ventilation system besides cooling the air, Stinchfield said.
Hardy said, and Chairman Meldon Gilmore of Freeman Township agreed, that commissioners had no choice but to replace the unit and accept the proposal from the contractor.
A contingency plan to house inmates at other jails is estimated to cost $100 per day per inmate. Renting a portable air-cooling unit is estimated to cost nearly $3,000 a week.
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