In the News

Wilkinson cooks up a solution for North Reading school

While lunch was cooking upstairs in the cafeteria at North Reading Middle School, the team from George T. Wilkinson, Inc. was designing its own recipe for replacing one of the aging boilers downstairs.

And, one of the key ingredients to successfully finishing the job was working while school was in session.

“Because of delays in bidding, we got a late start. It wasn’t exactly completed by Sept. 1,” said Wayne Hardacker, facilities director for North Reading schools.

The school department had delays in getting the contract awarded and had to call for a second set of bids. Wilkinson was the best qualified in both cases and was awarded the contract.

“At no cost to the customer, we did some key operational shut down after hours,” said Geoffrey C. Wilkinson, company president. This extra work was crucial in being able to install the new equipment without disrupting the school community in any fashion,

“The boiler room is right below the cafeteria. There was no smell or interruption. The job went flawlessly,” Hardacker said. The boiler room is located in a tight space. The new boiler had to be brought in pieces and assembled on site.

“The new boiler had to be welded while school was in session,” Hardacker explained.

Wilkinson installed a new state of the art EASCO Boiler. The old boiler is still in place, but was never turned on this winter.

The advantage of the EASCO Boiler is that it can be installed on site, which saves a substantial amount of money on structural changes that would have been needed with a boiler that could not be assembled at the job site. A different type of boiler would have meant taking down walls to get the new equipment inside and in place.

Knowing that North Reading was a very tight budget, Wilkinson was also able to save the customer money by reusing the old burner.

“Due to tight budget constraints, reusing the old burner was acceptable to the customer,” said Wilkinson.

The Wilkinson team had installed burners in the school ten years ago.

With just one new EASCO Boiler heating up the building, the 90,000 square foot building stayed warm all winter.

“I never got one teacher complaint. If the staff is cold, they always let me know,” he said.

Some 600 students attend the Middle School.

“We were very flexible to accommodate the customer,” said Wilkinson.