High school classrooms should soon see more fresh air

The School District 6 School Board last week voted to go with a new system that will greatly improve the ventilation in classrooms at the Columbia Falls High School.

The school initially wanted to completely overhaul the 63-year-old school’s heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems, but a bid for that came in at about $7.3 million.

The school has about $4.1 million in federal funding from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, a federal program administered by the Department of Education in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

So rather than expend all its “rainy day” reserves and possibly ask voters for a bond issue, the board decided to go with a fresh air ventilation system that will pump air that’s 70 degrees into all of the classrooms in the school. It will provide heat in the winter and and cooler air on hot days.

Right now, each classroom has a unit that blows heat and air into the classroom. But the units are noisy and oftentimes classrooms are either too hot or too cold.

Current code calls for a fresh air circulation of about 10 cubic feet per minute in a classroom, noted Tyler Tonjum, a mechanical engineer with Jackola Engineering and Architecture of Kalispell.

The typical Columbia Falls classroom is getting about two or three cfpm, he noted.

In other words the new system should be a 100% improvement, Tonjum noted.

Another project that would help classrooms is called a “curtain wall” project, which would replace the windows with more efficient glass and frames. That has a price tag of about $4.1 million as well.

That may be a project for the future. Overall, Tonjum said the school, despite its age, is in good shape.

“It has beautiful bones,” he said.

As the region sees more growth, the school may have to eventually expand and see more renovations, but it’s been well-maintained and is good condition, Tonjum noted.

With its steel and concrete super structure, it could easily be viable for another 60 to 100 years.