Common Ground
Schools of the 1960s Get
Mechanically Modernized Rachel Ruhl
School administrators in Byron Center, MI, recently overhauled the districts heating and hot-water systems to save energy
and money.
Turtleneck sweaters, beehive hairdos and inefficient
mechanical systems have this in common:
they’re all, thankfully, a thing of the past.
However, despite the hipster fashions, the 1960s
also ushered in a healthy dose of new environmental
awareness. Buildings constructed during that decade
show signs of it, too, with smarter use of insulation,
improved construction and more efficient heating and
cooling equipment.
The Byron Center, MI school district buildings, built
in the mid-1960s and with roughly 4,500 students
today, were about as inefficient as they come. Fortunately
for the school district, however, the facilities’
current Operations Director Doug Gallup is ardently
eco-conscious and has gone to great lengths to “regreen”
school facilities and administration buildings.
Gallup began his work at the school district in 2000
as Assistant Principal and Dean of Students. He assumed
the role of Operations Director in 2012, and the
school district has been making eco-friendly improvements
ever since.
The first thing Gallup did in his new role was study
the district’s water and electric bills. The heating and
cooling bill for one year for the high school alone was
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$398,000. It wasn’t hard to calculate what they’d been
spending yearly for all schools within the district—
and there was only room for improvement.
Gallup began with quick fixes: replacing all indoor/
outdoor lighting with LEDs and asking kitchen staff to
fire up the commercial ovens only 15 minutes prior to
their need. He learned that, previously, the behemoth
ovens were ignited up to two hours before lunchtime
meals.
Energy modifications
“I also began to record our energy consumption,” said
Gallup. “I wanted everything to be data driven—the
usage, and eventually savings.” Gallup initiated close
monitoring of gas and electric use to collect accurate
data.
“Fortunately, most of our school district transformers
are owned by the district, so I was also able to
negotiate rates with our gas and electric companies for
tremendous savings,” he said.
The first large, full-scale project Gallup tackled was
to change all school’s white roofs to black, a heat-retention
method that makes good sense in Michigan.
“The majority of the district’s high utility costs were
for heating the schools,” said Gallup. “We switched
4 ICM/July/August 2019