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Theatre Board president gives update on boiler replacement

CALUMET — Calumet Theatre Board President, Dan Jamison, gave an update on the project to replace the heating boilers of the theater and the Village Hall at Monday’s regular board meeting.

Jamison said that around two weeks before, he had met with Keweenaw National Historical Park Superintendent, Wendy Davis, historical architect with the Park Service, John Arnold along with a consultant from U.P. Engineers and Architects and Calumet Village manager Amber Goodman.

During the meeting, Jamison said he was asked if he had received a bid for replacing the boilers. Jamison said he had not, because it is not the Theatre’s building.

“I called them and asked how much would it be and how long would it take and that’s what I got,” he said. “I said it’s up to the village to go out for proposals.”

At its regular monthly meeting in July, the Village Council was given a presentation by Karin Cooper, project architect with UP Engineering and Architects, who gave a brief summary of a report on the assessment of the Calumet Theatre Building.

While the structure is considered a single building, Cooper told the council, the village offices and the theater section are separated by a firewall. For that reason, the report divides the structure into the Village offices/ballroom, and the theater.

Among the points discussed was replacement of the heating system of the building. It was proposed to either implement one boiler that rated for 1million BTUs, or two boilers at 700,000 BTUs each.

After the July council meeting, Jamsion said: “UP Engineers and Architects suggested that we get redundancy in this system and they suggested the same thing to the village side (of the building), which is circulating hot water. Get two boilers at 70% of the size, and that way, you can always fail them over to each other.”

BTU stands for British Thermal Unit. It is a unit of heat defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree in Fahrenheit.

“I did also make the point with them that we would like to have one 1 million-BTU boiler. Two 700,000 btu boilers in steam is a redundancy, it is not how steam boilers work,” Jamison said. “Steam boilers work best when they are running at about 85 percent capacity in one. The redundancy does us no good,” he said. “It’s fairly likely that the thing would rot before it wore out.”

Jamison said he was then asked how he knew the preferred boiler was the correct one for the theater building’s needs.

He replied that the boiler has been there since 2014, and it worked really well up until it backfired, and the backfire was because the theater was operating two boilers into one chimney

“There’s no vent,” said Jamison, “there’s no power vent, there’s no make-up air and she said ‘yeah, but how do you know it’s the right boiler.”

When asked again how he knew a single 1-million BTU was the proper decision, he responded that when a a light bulb burns out, he replaces the light bulb; he does not conduct an engineering study.

“But you’re welcome to; it’s your building,” he said at the meeting. “We’ve raised the money for you to do this, but what we have elapsing now is our ability to get this boiler.”

Jamison they are into the heating system, and now the theater is not the only one interested in the boiler. There are many more people.

Jamison said with the summer season coming to an end soon, if the boiler is not on site by December, a decision whether or not to shut the building down for the winter would need to be made.

The engineer from UPE&A made a third proposal, to which Jamison readily agreed. He suggested requesting Weil-McClain, North American Brand of hydronic comfort heating systems for residential, commercial and institutional buildings, send a certified boiler inspector to inspect the boiler the theater currently has, including conducting pressure testing, to learn if simply replacing the electronics package would suffice.

“Because,” said Jamison, “the electronics package melted. There was no huge fire, there was no leak, so they’re going to try to get Weil-McClain to do that.

Jamison said he pointed out again that it is not the Theatre Board’s job to be the purchasing department for Calumet Village, the owner of the building.

On Wednesday, Jamison said that while the Financial Committee was reviewing the annual 990 tax filing information, there is a section that lists assets owned by the Calumet Theatre.

“One of them is a boiler that was purchased in 2014 for $19,500. We own the boiler. We’ve raised $37,000 to replace the boiler, and the village now has to find a second source to get it ‘speced’ out.”

Jamison said that because the theater is the village’s building, the village should have the say in every step of the process, and it is in line with everything that U.P. Engineers and Architects has noted.

The boiler, he said, is rated at 1 million BTUs.

Jamison said there are two boilers, the second being a 400,000 BTU hot water unit that serves the village side of the building.

Jamison said that all that is required of the Village Council at this point is to give their approval.

The funding exists to cover the costs of the installation and replacement work, he said, so all that is required of the village is to select the company to do the work and obtain specifications from Weil-McClain.

But, he added, the theater is an asset to the village, and it has to be done the correct way.

“I wish we could have gotten started sooner,” he said, “but we didn’t get the (Heritage) grant from the Advisory Commission of the Park Service until a month ago.”

In addition, he said someone stepped forward and donated the second half of the required grant match.

“So, we’ve got cash in hand,” he said, “to help the village get out of a bad spot.”

That is in keeping with the relationship he wants to make sure the Theatre has now, and always will going forward.

“We want to be an asset,” he said. “We want to be there to help. If the village has problems with the building, the Theatre will secure the grants, while the village will retain the final say and approval.”

Jamison said the Village Council and the Calumet Theatre have to be partners in the building, not adversaries, which was the history in the past couple of years.

“And we are not adversaries,” he said. “We share a common interest.”

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