JAY – Selectmen voted unanimously Monday to let the town’s recycling and transfer station coordinator buy a waste oil burner for $7,656.07 to heat the recycling building.

The cost is well below the $36,000 it was estimated to buy a wood furnace to heat the building.

Coordinator Bob Sanders told selectmen he had changed the proposal totally due to several factors, including the cost of the wood boiler and labor, and he’s collecting more clean, quality waste oil than he anticipated.

Last year, Sanders switched to burning waste oil to heat the building that the solid waste is collected and compressed in and that also houses the office.

Sanders said Monday that he has commitments from Livermore Falls Highway Department to have the waste oil from that garage and from a commercial garage.

The Jay facility also accepts used waste oil from residents. The staff at the station monitors the waste oil coming in.

The $7,656.07 price is from Dirigo Waste Oil, which also provided the burner for the solid waste building.

They stayed right to the nickel of the their estimate last year, Sanders said.

In 2005, it took 3,789 gallons of oil to heat the recycling building, which also contains a bathroom and break room.

Sanders said with the waste oil burner cost it would only be a one-year payback compared to three to four years payback for a wood boiler.

The new burner also has a blower that would circulate the heat around the building. He plans to install ductwork so the heat could reach the break room and the bathroom. Currently the break room is heated with propane.

“I’m looking at 1,000 gallons in each place for waste oil,” Sanders said.

He already has a stockpile of 1,200 gallons, he said.

Even if the town needs to buy waste oil, he said, it costs 20 cents per gallon compared to $2 or more per gallon of No. 2 heating oil.

The technology on the waste oil burners has come an amazing distance the last 10 years, Sanders said.

Selectman Rick Simoneau said it was a win-win situation, the town would save $25,000 on the burner and the cost of handling the wood.

In other business, selectmen voted 5-0 to allow the Jay Development Committee spend some of the $2,500 or so in its checking account to make professional-looking packages to attract businesses to the area.

Town Manager Ruth Marden said they would like to spend up to $800 or $900 to put the packages together.

In another matter, resident Al Landry asked to have property owners’ valuations in the town report so he can review them instead of going to the town office.

“We’re being hit with holding costs down and now we’re being asked to increase the cost of the town report,” Marden said.

Selectmen said they would look into the cost of publishing the data in the report as well as putting it on the town’s Web site.