The heating and cooling rooftop units at the Marshall County Jail are at an age where Jail Maintenance Director John Greer is urging the Marshall County Commissioners to look into replacing them soon.
There are 10 units atop the jail and Dynamic Mechanical Services recently conducted an evaluation where they found that most of the units are generally in good condition. However, Greer said units that heat and cool three pods where some inmates are housed need serious attention.
“The jail is operating at full capacity,” reported Greer. “If one of these units would suffer a major failure, we have no area within the jail to move three pods of inmates for an extended period of time.”
If a failure occurs that services the inmate pods, the county would have to move the inmates to another county facility for housing in order to wait for a new unit to be built and installed, which could take anywhere from 17 to 19 weeks.
Greer said he is currently getting a proposal for one unit and another for three units. Due to the competitive nature of the issue, those quotes weren’t listed during Monday morning’s public meeting. The sheriff did say they had funding to purchase a backup unit now just in case something would happen.
Commissioner Stan Klotz said he thinks all three should be replaced as soon as possible.
“I think we just need to bite the bullet, replace them and be done with it,” commented Klotz.
Greer said the county could realize a cost savings when purchasing three units as the crane to place the units would only need to be set only once.
The commissioners asked Greer to get quotes for three units and they will review those quotes at their next meeting on Monday, July 1.
