Barkhamsted selects Tower Generator to implement its town wide emergency plan

By November, all of the municipal buildings in Barkhamsted will be supported by new or nearly new generators, a feat First Selectman Don Stein is very proud of.

These plans were conceived in an effort to avoid the predicament in which town officials found themselves several years ago during the October 2011 nor’easter, when the generator in Barkhamsted Elementary School failed. The school was serving as the town’s shelter at the time.

“Luckily, people in town were resourceful,” said Stein. The local fire departments opened their doors to allow people to get out of the cold and charge their cellphones, but there wasn’t an overnight shelter available.

Stein said the generators required a “concentrated effort to keep up and running.” A lot of “tender loving care” was required in the maintenance.

The town began looking into replacing generators to ensure their reliability and availability of parts for quick fixes when things break.

Their primary focus was on the school generator, which was 25 years old, and the Highway Garage’s generator, which had been donated from the Barkhamsted East Fire Company when it got a new generator several years ago. The garage’s generator was 30 years old. Stein sought the opinion of a local generator company for pricing on the project before applying for a STEAP grant from the state to fund the replacements.

According to Stein, he added a 20 percent contingency on top of those estimates when he applied for the grant. In October 2012, the town received a grant totaling $230,000 to replace the two generators.

The project went out to bid in April, and Canton-based Tower Generator was selected to complete the project.

The school will receive a 150-kilowatt generator and a new switch gear; the garage will receive a 60-kilowatt generator. Those two replacements totaled $100,338, leaving a lot of extra room in the budget, a result Stein was not expecting based on the estimates he received at the beginning of the planning process.

Stein speculated that original estimate was high and perhaps a contingency was put on without his knowledge. He then put a contingency on the estimate before applying for the grant. “I did everything conservatively, but not crazy,” said Stein.

With the extra funds available, the town decided to look at other needs. The generators at the Riverton Volunteer Fire Company and Pleasant Valley Volunteer Fire Department’ were aging and the Barkhamsted Senior Center didn’t have one at all. Stein asked Tower Generator to give the town three more estimates to replace those generators. The total for those replacements was $124,000.

“For the original price of two generators, we’re getting five,” said Stein. “Some would look at that as wasteful, but I look at it as being frugal. I’m happy we can say that we’re 100 percent covered.”

The Pleasant Valley Volunteer Fire Department will receive a 30-kilowatt generator, the Riverton Volunteer Fire Company will receive a 40-kilowatt generator and some rewiring and the senior center will receive a 40-kilowatt generator with completely new wiring.

The school’s and garage’s generators will run on diesel and the other three will run on propane.

The first of the generators, at the garage, will be installed next week, said Stein. All hopefully will be installed by mid-November.

The town will contribute to the project by doing the ground preparation, and the fire district has pledged to contribute up to $20,000 to cover extraneous costs for the replacements.

“Now we know the town can respond at all of our facilities,” said Stein.

Reach Kate Hartman at 860-489-3121, ext. 343.
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