For local community governments, obtaining grant funding can be a good way to defray the cost of carrying out important projects.
So it caught our attention when we read that Concord Township will be using grant money to make upgrades to improve heating efficiency at its service department. The source of that funding is a Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council Energized Community Grant, The News-Herald’s Bryson Durst reported.
One planned improvement is the replacement of the garage doors at the department’s north building. Township Service Director Tim Brown said in an email that the current doors are original to the building.
“By replacing these doors with new ones, we will gain a better constructed insulated door and be able to retain heat in the winter months, which will lower heating bills,” Brown said.
He said that the original north building is estimated to have been built in the 1980s, while two additions were completed by the mid-1990s. He estimated that the existing garage doors are from the mid-1990s.
The township is also planning to install a “new, more efficient and better heating source” in the service department’s south building, Brown said. The new units will provide more than twice the heat content of the existing system.
“The current heaters are over 20 years old and undersized for the square footage of the building,” he added.
“NOPEC has been a great partner to Concord Township making projects like this possible and helping Concord be more energy efficient,” he said.
The township trustees approved a $26,600 purchase order from Lake County Door for the garage door purchases in January, and they approved a $21,933.60 purchase order from Royal Heating and Air Conditioning for the new heaters in February.
They also voted to accept NOPEC’s Energized Community Grant in February. Township Administrator Andy Rose told the trustees that NOPEC had awarded the township $42,823.
The News-Herald commends Concord Township for finding ideal uses for the NOPEC grant that will improve energy efficiency in two of its buildings.