For more than five decades, the present-day DeKalb County Courthouse has served as home to the court system, offices of local public officials, the election commission, veteran services and for meetings and other purposes.
Built in 1970 through the federal model cities program, the courthouse has served the county well and remains an active place, especially on days when court is in session, but it has also often become an uncomfortable environment due to a faulty chiller boiler heating and cooling system which causes portions of the building to be too hot in the summer and too cold during winter.
Its been a periodic problem for several years and the county has spent significant time and money trying to fix it. But now the 55-year-old system has completely failed and needs immediate attention at a time when replacement parts for it are no longer easy to come by.
During Monday night’s regular monthly County Commission meeting, County Mayor Matt Adcock said a temporary fix is the only option right now, but he plans to ask the commission to fund a completely new HVAC system in the new 2025-26 budget this summer.
“The boiler system is completely shot,” said County Mayor Adcock. “The boiler system is so old they have to make parts for it to work. They are trying to expedite it to get it here just to get the system up and running. Thinking about the future, I have asked a couple of different companies that’s come out. I have talked to them about doing a whole new heating and cooling system in the courthouse and completely get rid of the boiler,” said Adcock.
“I am probably going to ask for approximately $400,000 at budget time in capital projects to completely overhaul the entire system to remove the boiler, chiller, blower, and put in modern HVAC on all three floors with split units and thermostats. The cost to get it back up and running isn’t as significant as the permanent fix. The boiler works off the water pipes going up to the wall units that blows heat. The water from the boiler goes up but the pipes are so corroded between the wall units and the boiler that the hot water can’t get up there to blow hot air. You can touch the piping below the floor and its scalding hot and you touch the piping above and its ice cold. There is a lot of corrosion buildup in the lines so that the water can’t properly get throughout the courthouse to heat and cool. That’s the reason we are going to talk about doing an overall overhaul. I’m not quite sure what the cost will be yet. We will have to get an engineer to see how this project will be done and determine the cost because the courthouse has really thick marble and concrete. I’ve been told it would be anywhere from a quarter of a million dollars to half a million dollars to completely overhaul everything,” said County Mayor Adcock.