Students are on summer break, making that the perfect time for major school maintenance projects to be performed—which means there’s not much of a break for the people who take care of such maintenance. One of the biggest projects has already been completed: the removal of the underground oil tanks at Cider Mill, Middlebrook and Wilton High Schools.
GOOD Morning Wilton has photos and video (below) of the tank being removed at Cider Mill; that tank had a 10,000 gallon capacity and weighed 13,000 pounds; while the 25,000 gallon high school tank was around a hefty 32,000 pounds.
Underground oil tanks have a history of problems, including leaks and high maintenance costs. According to John Murphy, custodial and maintenance supervisor for the Wilton school district, the state encourages schools to remove the tanks if it’s practical to do so.
The removal is also part of the district and town plan to convert the schools to natural gas as part of the Eversource natural gas pipeline expansion project. The High School converted to gas fuel during the 2014-15 school year; the conversion will be completed on Cider Mill and Middlebrook over the summer as well. Plans to convert Miller-Driscoll are part of the bigger renovation project for that school.
Murphy says the timing of the conversion couldn’t have been more perfect.
“The tanks at the schools were reaching the end of their life, (around 30 years), and were going to have to be replaced anyway,” he tells GMW in an email. The gas conversion, he says, allowed the district to pull out the tanks without having to replace them.
If the district would have stayed with oil fuel, new tanks would have to be installed above ground, Murphy says that not only would getting approvals from the Planning & Zoning Commission have been more difficult, it would have been very costly. One estimate for installation of a 10,000 gallon, above-ground tank came in at around $200,000, including associated costs for piping.
In contrast, the cost for removing the tanks, which was included in the current year’s budget, was around $30,000 each.
In addition to the savings of not replacing the oil tanks, Murphy lists the many benefits of being able to convert from oil to gas:
- Gas burns cleaner, and is a better environmental choice
- Boilers can be cleaned every 2-3 years instead of annually
- The new boilers going into Cider Mill and Middlebrook are high efficiency condensing boilers
- The long term projection shows gas should provide a better value than oil.
