Merrimack School Facility Projects Under Way

MERRIMACK, NH — School District officials are working on completing several facility projects at Merrrimack schools before students return to school on Tuesday, Sept. 3. At Mastricola Elementary School, the parking lot is being reconstructed, and new boilers are being installed. At Merrimack High School, workers are installing a new transformer and switch-gear to avoid power issues.

Assistant Superintendent for Business Matthew Shevenell said that the Mastricola School parking lot is being reconstructed at a cost of approximately $375,000. He said the old parking lot did not drain well and in rainy weather it "resembled somewhat of a lake." Piping under the parking lot is being replaced, and new lighting is being installed by Custom Electric. The reconstruction project is about half complete, Shevenell said this week.

Also at Mastricola School, new boilers have arrived to replace a heating system that was at least 35 years old, said Shevenell. The new boiler system is intended to be redundant, he said — if one section goes out of commission another section will take over. The new boilers are industrial units that can handle "a very, very large load," said Shevenell. He said school officials are spending about $400,000 to install the new boilers this year, as they did not want to risk waiting and having the heating system shut down in the middle of winter.

"To try to do something at that point in time, you'd be shutting down the school for a month," said Shevenell. He said the boiler project is about 60 percent complete.

At Merrimack High School, power has been shut down at half of the building, as workers replace an aging transformer at the school. The transformer, installed in 1977, has been removed with a crane, and a new one is ready to be put in its place. In addition to new switch-gear, the new transformer will bring more consistent power to the school when it replaces the old system. The $350,000 project will take approximately two more weeks to complete, said Shevenell on Tuesday.

All three projects are set for completion before students return to school on Tuesday, Sept. 3. Funding for all three had been approved as part of the School District's operating budget, he said.

"It's a lot of work, we have a terrific facilities director that alerts me to come down when we have a problem," said Shevenell.

At Mastricola School, officials ran into an unexpected issue when they discovered piping that had been compromised under the school parking lot. Some of the pipes had to be removed or re-routed, he said.

"Forty, 50 years ago, it just wasn't documented. We found a couple surprises, and then things started to make sense," said Shevenell, stating that as of the work done this summer, the piping under the parking lot is now documented in a new schematic diagram. "It's kind of removing that little mystery under there."