With a sigh and noting they were inevitable, the Barton County Commission Tuesday morning approved a change request and a host of change orders for the ongoing, year-long $4 million Courthouse HVAC replacement project.
“The first request for the ventilation and air conditioning improvement effort centers on asbestos abatement,” County Administrator Matt Patzner said. The total came to $55,202.14 to be paid to project contractor Kruse Corporation of Wichita.
The problem was in the flooring tiles, and the discovery came as no surprise, said District 1 Commissioner Duane Reif. “With the date those tiles were put in, I’d be surprise if there wasn’t asbestos.”
Then there were five change orders. Each was below the $50,000 threshold and they have already been authorized, but commissioners needed to ratify the expenditures, Patzner said.
These included:
• Additional asbestos abatement for ceiling tiles for $41,460.97. These were installed in the 1980s, just a few years before asbestos was no longer used.
• Additional flooring on the steps between the third and fourth floor for $2,947.74.
• Additional flooring in the courtroom for $4,472.08. Once Kruse got all the carpet up in the courtroom, they noticed there was material underneath that would take more labor to remove.
• Cleaning out the service disconnect switch for $9,483.23.
• Installing a tap box to the service disconnect switch for $12,203.23.
The last two are related to allowing the courthouse to run on the generator for backup power.
In all, the changes totalled $70,567.25, which is also being paid to Kruse.
“As we said, we don’t like change orders, but they’re expected, especially an old building like this,” said District 2 Commissioner Barb Esfeld. “Unfortunately it’s going to happen.” With the asbestos, Patzner said there had been a review before work started. But, the additional asbestos was found as crews dug into the work.
“Once again, this is what is expected,” Reif said. “So it’s really no surprise that we are going to have expenses like this.”
But, “when we get done with this, we want to do it correctly and don’t want to just to kick the can down the road.”
