City to purchase new boilers for the municipal pool

One Municipal pool boiler is what Grand Marais Larry Carlson called “dead” and the backup is sick. So this Wednesday’s meeting was time for action.

“Out of the five chambers we have two leaking. One of the boilers is sitting back in the corner that is dead. So we can limp for a bit but ‘a bit’ is talking day to day. So last night the council agreed to buy two new boilers.”

Costs could run high, but the good news is current models are energy efficient.

“Supposedly the energy savings on these two new boilers will pay for itself, the contractor said three to five years, Mike Roth (City Administrator) thought it might even be less than that.”

The Mayor said the boilers were not being replaced because of their efficiency, but rather that the circumstances spelled a crisis. With the new community center/pool complex on hold, Carlson said the city had to go ahead and spend the money.

“That is one thing I did ask about, how portable are these in the event that we shut that pool down in another two years? The boilers themselves are high efficiency, state of the art and very saleable, moveable, and so they can go most anyplace.’

When the city looked at a boiler replacement in 2010, the prices were between $15 and $20,000.