um you know I think it's important for the viewers who are who write poetry and who are looking to have their words heard to see that hey it doesn't matter you can do this at any age you know like you don't you know so many people well I mean you write poetry when you're 20 and you're like you know what I should do
something and then you wait till you're retired and you do it and there are so many I mean there's a lot of open mics in this area that I mean even in the last year and a half I've come to find out cuz you know I didn't know about a lot of them and it's like just to show
up and be a fly on the wall and watch you know one or two of them and then you're like you know what yeah I could get up and whether you know I've seen people read directly from their Pages at an open mic I mean but majority of them will read you know they've memorized their poem or they they're sharing their
story or of course doing a nice comedy routine and I mean it's it's a way to get your story out it's a way also for you to hear your own voice in your story um what what is for you like the the funnest and the the most Challen in part of doing things like that and I know
like you did say reading off of the audience like of course you know when the audience is laughing or getting an emotion that you know you're you're portraying that's always important my my favorite alltime favorite venue is the
American crossword puzzle tournament which is going to sound no and I meant to bring that up right in the in your bio it's kind of sound weird but um they have you know every year they have this annual tournament with Will Schwarz uh puts it on and um all the New York Times
Constructors are there and people and so people come from all over the world for that and they're word nerds and uh on Sunday when after people have done the last puzzle which is a Sunday siiz puzzle the judges have to grade that to
see what the rankings are for the puzzle so they have a talent show in that in that time slot and so I've been doing that um I know last 10 years and uh that is my oldtime favorite because I write things just for them and
uh and when I perform them it is such a great audience they just you know they're nerds they know what I'm doing they know word play and um and I've been doing these things uh for them I don't do them anywhere else but uh like I'll
take a a fairy tale like Snow White and I'll change the vocabulary I'll take a vocabulary of say names of artists Museums Art history you know things like that and so then I'll I'll do something
like um once long ago uh snow Wyatt's mama mom died in childbirth and her da uh the king uh got brought home a new stepmother will be before he perished in
a foreign warhole and it goes on like that you know and and she goes through the mirror and says Miro Miro on the wall who's the fairest one of all who's your favorite one of all and they get all the all the Illusions you know and I can go on like
that yeah so you're telling the story but you just like you get to change it I put I just make it full of puns it's it's a nonsense thing you know because it's all nonsense words but you know it's a you know I'm way waiting way waiting for the one I lra I'm waiting
today you know and um and it's it's like 800 people and I just love it because they they're all yeah yeah I love your energy and your enthusiasm and your passion it's like comes across so it's just so cool yeah and yeah I mean
playing with words is just like something that yeah I love I mean I think a lot of writers love you know doing those crossword puzzles and you know I when I when when I first heard that you were doing those crossword puzzles competitions it kind of reminded me of um the movie where I can't I'm not
going to remember the name of it now but like they have the chess the chess um games the Queen's Gambit yes the Queen's Gambit and I was like oh that could be its own movie talking about these crossword puzzle because I'm like that would be really cool because you know
it's funny and it's witty and it's you know something that is America you know I mean it's it's bringing in the word nerds and it's like you know needs to happen more often um even doing you know reading poetry and doing these story slams I mean it is a doing a mix of
words and changing adjectives and changing the dialects and making sure that you know the Cadence sounds good even though you know when we have these authentic stories that we're telling from our life and our life experiences you know we want to make it sound good yeah I mean naturally your
stories are funny anyways but I can see how you've you know twist them to make them you know good poetry um with the story that you just won this past week you know um it was an educational story also you know I'll share can I I think I sh a little bit about it um but you know
you were talking about the first time that you went into a cannabis store because you were looking for medicinal you had very bad sciatic pain and you know how you went about you know getting it and what the experiences of walking in there because you never thought you would ever do something like that and
you know the experience I've never walked into a cannabis store so I mean I had that whole first experience with you you know walking right in and seeing the spaceship that you know you kind of explored and then seeing the names of the different you know gummies or whatever and you know it
was it was hilarious you painted a picture and then I'm just thinking like this is this is a real experience that you had and you know you're talking about the pain you're having from this sciatic and I'm like I hope this works for her I really do
and I I mean the story just kept building and I'm like oh I can't wait for the end where she says you know it cured me and it didn't it didn't and you know it's like oh great you you know tried cannabis for the first time trying to solve this problem and it didn't even solve the problem but it gave you a really great story I know that's what I
was thinking for all the good it did me you know I had the story afterwards yeah and you know some of our experiences that we have we go through in life I mean for for me and I know for you like you say why did I do that it's like oh well I did it because it's going to be a
Funny Story one day yeah um do you can you remember one of your funnier experiences that you shared in a poem or anything like that or um have you you've written right it's been published your poetries I'm let you yeah I
uh I have I because say wait a second you have published so I want to talk about that thank you so yeah lessons out of school gallery of readers yeah I mean you know I always like to show you know your books that you know you have I mean they they um you know poetry that can be
even set to music but they're stories yeah you know each one each one is a story and these are your lessons when when did you start reading this these po uh that was while you were teaching that was while I was
teaching but I I waited to publish them till I was about to retire okay yeah cuz we just kind of compile all of our poetry in like a file or they get lost in the computer um I'm actually doing something like that now is going back and getting poetry I've written 30 years
ago and trying really yeah I'm like searching my computer and finding files and you know realizing I have to edit some of them and then some of them I read and say yeah no you some of them you don't want to touch because it'll destroy what you had then no and and the ones that I don't have to edit a lot I
mean I really don't like I just format it I'm like oh that's a good one and then the ones I'm starting to edit a little bit too much of I'm like stopping myself and I go you know what if I don't think it the way it is then it just doesn't need to be in here yeah you know cuz we get a little critical of our own
work yeah um and I think you write different things at different points in your life too I mean and and that that should be valued you know and should be taken as as a statement of where you were then not necessarily change to
reflect who you are now very good advice that's the wisdom the wisd that she has so you're moving on to the finals yes congratulations do you know whether they give you a separate topic or no you do the same story you do the same story you
do the same story yes so you're great yeah um yep so with the story slam they take um the the winners of each individual contest I think they had I don't know maybe five kind I don't even know how many they have throughout the
year three so they take those three and there's three winners in each for second third prize and then they all move on to the finals where last year was held at the Academy of Music yeah they're always held at the Academy so and I think it was in March or April I think it was April so then yes you'll be
back on stage and you'll be able to share the story so the audience should run and buy their tickets now because it is a fun night that's that's great because uh when they first started they would give you a new topic yeah and so like people who had uh done it for the
first time and only had that one story you know we're kind of like now what do I do you know and and things so yeah well I mean you know if your if your stories won first first prize at this I'm going to say a little smaller venue I mean people want to hear it people
want to hear the story you know so yeah go and stand on that stage with 800 people in the audience and do the magic and everyone is going to be laughing and um it isn't I know it's in April so if you go to new media yeah you can you can
buy tickets and they go fast they go very fast but it is such a fun night um you know you hear 10 TW I think there's 12 storytellers that come on yeah and you know each one again five minutes yeah do you when you're telling your story do you know your time in your head
does your heart start to go oh God I got to finish up or uh sometimes when I sometimes I time it and sometimes I don't uh but at the workshop they always tell you that you're you know seven minutes or five minutes or under five so
um so I knew this time I had to cut some because I was coming in at seven oh that's a lot to cut yeah so I I completely redid it and uh change the focus and and got it down but when people laugh goes longer than five minutes anyway yeah and and they make
exceptions for those things too and I you know I'll share like when I did the story slam and for you and even when doing these open mics you know there's time limits whether the open mics sometimes they 3 minutes sometimes they seven minutes um New England public media like we said is five but they do have someone in the audience who kind of
shines like a little light with a one minute warning so you know you kind of know that you know you got to wrap it up a little bit Yeah so um I I want to I want to be able to have our audience listen to some of your stories so I I will definitely put the link on for the
most recent one when it comes available but where else can they maybe see a performance of yours performance because we know that you are not online yeah you are social media and computer illiterate is that what we were saying yes she's never tweeted I've
never tweeted and I missed my chance you know and uh you know I've never been friended and I will friend you no I don't have any place for you to friend me well the good thing is no one can unfriend you we're friends
you can't be blocked but um you've been on you know some of the um the the gallery of readers uh has been taping them and um uh they they have video and sound recording so on their website gallery of
readers.com okay um just put in your name yeah and that should yeah and then you have plenty of other performances you've done at New England public media so of course that would be on there on website so I think there sound they they weren't um videotaping them when I
started okay yeah no you're right it was like more podcasting you listen yeah so I know I have several or two of those maybe can anyone get your book How do how do you get this book you can get it online uh through Amazon or you can get it through gallery of readers all right
well I will put the link to um lessons out of school and um you know I didn't get to have you as a professor in school but I think in life I'm so glad that I met you I've I learned a lot about I just learn from you and your experiences
and your your confidence your presence and your presentation well thank you angel thank you so much for coming on the show thank you I really appreciate it and I want to thank you my listening audience for always tuning in to each new episode to see you know who the guest is who's going to be on the show
and find out a little bit about their life their experience and how they're sharing their stories um today we talked with Susan K and we were talking to her about verbal storytelling which of course on this show as we're sharing our stories that's exactly what we're doing
we're verbally telling you a story and every week I give you a prompt to sit down and start writing a story and of course I'm going to let you still pick up that pen to start writing but you know you have topics that have happened in your life that maybe you have shared
an experience at the dinner table or at the Holiday table or at the company Christmas party you know maybe if you make a little list of those kind of um stories and then start figuring out how you might turn it into a poem or turn
them into a story slam and come out and come to an open mic and try it out with an audience because that audience feedback and you know this if you've shared a story at the dinner table you have your audience right there they feed on it they they appreciate hearing the
story from you so today let's think about the stories that you've shared and the stories that you want to share that you've told because today we are talking about using our voice to share a story so thank you so much for tuning in to Y right I will see you on the next episode
happy writing and enjoy the week until next week have a great day bye [Music]
hour pass gu did you guys a few minutes we're good countdown is fine all right stand by 5 4 3 2 one good evening and welcome to the
Wednesday March 12th 2025 Middle School building committee meeting this meeting will be a hybrid meeting uh both in room a 15 on Bliss Road and uh on Zoom uh if there's anybody on Zoom who wishes to
participate please make yourself known uh using the the little hand signals or or hand waving thing and Marty will admit you to to talk um I'll now open it up for any public comments actually no
let's do a roll call just to make sure everybody who's here Lynn is here Army's here Marty's here we have Nicole here Josh is here I'm doing voting members uh who
voting members on the phone none none okay we do have a quorum so we will proceed um moving on then to approval of amendments February 12th 2025 I move that we approve February 12
200 or 2025 meeting minutes there's a me there's a motion at second second motion and second any comments discussion see none I'll call for a vote Lynn um abstain Marty yes Nicole yes
Josh yes Armen yes we have a 4 to one with nobody on the phone if you do enter the like any member voting member who enters please make yourself known at at the time you enter um any public comments seeing none we'll move on to we
have correspondence from Greg link um Greg had sent in correspondence in regards to uh PV on the the property and um how we were handling that Dory which the
response and the original from correspondent from Greg were shared to everybody that um the school is being prepped for for PV um but what the plan is or the way it's being staged is that
um with the geothermal and the other things we're doing with the school there will be some rebates coming in post project from Mass Save and then it would be the intent that those funds could be used to uh finish the PV uh panels on
the roof because it it will not be reimbursed from the msba am I saying that right thank you all right um new business schedule update y so we have our schedule
um whenever Marty can screen so I'm that schedule's being there it is um so we are currently on schedule um the design team has sent over the drawings to the two estimators um can you hold on one sec Tom are you
taking notes or who's taking notes will do it from the recording okay so I just want to note at 704 David DAV thank you called out no we need for the minute just surve knows we need it for the minute um and
when people come on Zoom or enter the room it's not apparent to Diane who's reviewing the videos to do our minutes for us so sorry about that go ahead ad all right uh so the drawings have gone over to the two estimators um pm andc and am fery are the two cost estimators
who are going to be doing the the work on that and um so they currently have the the drawings and we have our reconciliation meetings that are set up for April 7th and 8th April 7th is going to be kind of going through the um
reconciliation part of it where we have the two estimators and ourselves and people from the district getting together just to make sure that the scope all lines up that you know cost and quantities all everything ties together so we can actually have a true reconciliation and then on the eth we're going to go through any type of um you
know if there's leftover agenda items left from that day but we're also going to go through any potential value engineering items on uh the eth as well so where are we holding those are we doing it in person we doing it just hybrid just hybrid okay so everybody's going to be on Zoom for everybody be on Zoom
yep and so um I know we have I I sent off the invitation to a few of the folks I think Marty you asked me to invite Tom and somebody else um Lynn I don't know or Ian you're here I don't know if you want to be a part of that as well or if Lyn you want to be a part again these are all day things so I know everybody
else has their you know full-time jobs that they're doing so way to sell it um but it would be nice if some if if folks from the district could jump in every now and then or just have it on in the background and if something comes up that you know uh if we have a specific question on or I don't know if there's
any particular Parts when we get the agenda out that you're going to say the town or the you know they should be a part of this piece of it what we were thinking of doing I checked with the consultant and we'll the estimators aboutone of the consults had any to go in a specific um
so we'll ask the estimators but like we may have mechanical first you know we'll had a have a schedule and you're really just listening to these two teams of experts talk back and forth about what they saw and Quantified um and then they ask our Engineers questions about things
that they didn't understand so it's kind of a lot of a lot of information but we'll we'll set up a more specific schedule and then you could share that that around so people can see so the value engineering the purpose of value engineering is potentially uh to bring
the project in at a budget that we've sort of forecast and protected with the msba if if there's and and I'm guessing most of the value engineering decisions are fairly straightforward but there might be some that are more significant
or higher stakes and you know to include this or not include that or that kind of thing um if some of those decisions need to come back to the the potentially could need to come back to the building committee yep and and we would have enough time to do that given when we
have to get the schematic design off to the msba right and so that's why before this meeting started that's what we're talking about we're going to have an additional meeting next month yeah and pushing the regular scheduled meeting on the 9th out to the 16th so we'll have the meeting on the 16th and then we'll have another meeting on the 29th um to
kind of just do formal vote to submit it to the msba um but the the second meeting or the first meeting that month would be uh just give enough time for the community to have enough time to look through the estimate and kind of look at what we thought maybe for potential ve items I will say that
there's sort of um different we we've also asked the estimators we've given them um different things that we wanted pricing on that are so not ve sounds like you cut cut cut but sometimes it's also that we're comparing different things and so there are some things that we'll
be able to make decisions on that you won't care about essentially where we're just getting the information we needed and then anything that's super consequential definitely we would go to the committee for if it felt if if it was a change in anything of your
expectations of the project you know but there's a lot that we will work through with them on that second day um to try in if we meet on the 16th there would be time for the building committee to give direction on any ve decisions
yeah y just a quick note for anybody who wasn't here when we were talking about it that the meeting we were talking about for the 29th will be at 5:30 yes and so I don't think Armen you were in the room um so we talked about not having the meeting on the 9th only because it's the day after we get the uh
reconciliation those two meetings done and pushing that meeting out to um the 16th at 6:00 and then we were talking on having a meeting on the 29th which we know is a school committee meeting as well um but meeting at
5:30 at 5:30 and for a vote for a vote yep so it should be a relatively quick meeting unless there's you know discussion on you know the estimate but there shouldn't be really any other agenda items on there 630 6:30 we can push to 7
if we need to okay thanks um other than that we have the submission Due on May 1st and then there's the msba board meeting on uh June 23th and that's where we stand with scheduled so msba board would
potentially approve the schematic design and at that point we would have a full project scope and budget yes y that's a very locked in number with the msba at that point in time is the uh that usually get
formalized before the board meeting is it back and forth I'm forgetting the process now but right does an msba usually call us in a week or so before the board meeting and there'll be discussions that yeah the board meeting is just the official District as far as
you know the 311 and what and what's in each line item of the of the the overall project budget and then uh they'll their staff will then bring it to the board with their approve their approval for the board to make a final approval to
move forward great this one more schedule question um yeah this is the time um the we were waiting to get msba approval on the construction manager at risk approach has that been secured yet or is that
we're still that was the inspector General's office I think we're back from she actually sent me back just a couple comments yesterday so I'm just I'm going to respond to those comments and send it back but no nothing you don't anticipate any hiccups there great great
um there's going to be a letter to the editor and a reminder tomorrow asking where the traffic study is uh do we know when that is would be done I don't think there's a scheduled date as of yet I think he was unless it's changed since the last time we talked yeah I talked to them talked to
him yesterday oh you did yeah so they're they're starting they're doing the work and of very soon they're starting into it and I was pointing out the schedule and how we wanted to have time for you to hear about that and get the information back prior to the completion
of this phase um so and they do need time to actually write it up so they're going to hand us the the final written version shortly before your vote but they'll have a verbal presentation ready to go to the district leadership um in uh believe it's actually right around
the time that we're having that first meeting so what I can do is line up to have us present it to you know to the district ahead of the meeting and then present an overview of that results at the meeting on the 16th and the letter uh said we're running out of time
to do the study while there's traffic so it sounds like that's happening soon though that the observation part and part of their they wanted to get Peak traffic flow information and they wanted information from the district that we gave them this week that was part of
that process so so I mean I know it's more calendar when we're talking about like Peak traffic flow but like when I was reading the letter i was like it kind of discounts methodology I would think would be taken into account that like there's a leviz of traffic it's not always going to be Peak it's not always
going to be low and you can't just study the Peaks you got to study the valleys as well um to be complete so I it seemed undisciplined to me the letter trying to do a methodology but from your
perspective will is that part of the study Peaks amp valys not just Peak uh great do this better than we can but he he would like to do it in late March to get an idea of Walkers and bikers so that they can take they can look exactly what you're talking about
look at get those numbers so that they have them for their study but then that they um uh got his email up here that they they load their value so that they can um you know see what the vehicle Demand on a poor weather Day based off of that data so that the report can
cover both scenarios okay thank you that clears it way up for me so if I understood right that they'll be done and be able to present that on April 16th they'll be able to verbally okay present it they'll have the final write up by yeah that's cuz we were
pushing for that as well because it's like well you know you guys are going to be weighing and evaluating the the numbers and the reconciliation and the project information so I wanted you to have that information verbally as well and then for for the I guess for the 29th does that have to be completed by
the 29th or is that the report yeah the written report yes well we're submitting it to the msba so we want it in hand to go into the report okay all right and just looking out next couple of months like what does
may look like for us see just for the end of the school year and all kinds of events and things I'm just trying to give a feel for what might be down the road um anything on your end that I mean so
the the the things that are consequential to us there will be a conversation with the msba with us looking at the space summary in the district just going through that prior to them doing the scope and budget agreement where they talk about what's
uh what What's allowable and what isn't in their funding um once we have submitted and once it's been approved there's this phase where we're really trying to make this information as available to the community as possible um and you can begin that before the
June board meeting and you usually have a pretty good sense already whether there's a problem with the msba and there usually Isn't So at that point you can start thinking about how you present the information to the community and we're available and we are already and
will be working on developing materials that help to communicate the whole design to the community um we typically will start presenting some packages of information so that people will want to understand what it's going to look like and some of that's more visual um or
just a study of the section of the site things like that so we'll develop that and we started already but we'll keep doing that even after the SD phase is over um and then at some point I'm sure you'll have communities in the town that
want to hear more about it so then you can start laying out it gets to the question of when the the public vote is right as well yeah which I don't think we've decided that that's not yet been set by the town yet no not yet I don't
know if you have a a thought yet then yeah so what I what I'm hoping to do is bring this group um back a couple scenarios for probably the April 16th meeting okay uh and we can discuss that and then I would love this group to make
a recommendation to the select board on what they think what we think the um election date should be uh but it's looking like September is a possibility but the more we examine the calendar um
we have to decide whether we want the vote before or after town meeting and it seems like it's the more standard approach is after town meeting so that puts us into roughly middle of November so we have to look at that so I I'll bring back a memo the next meeting
laying out some options and again I'd like to have a vote to recommend to the select board great I Marty and I talked briefly about faculty jwa presenting a faculty before the SD phase is done and I think to your point like the school year
ending you lose a lot of attention so if there's a public presentation of the schematic design you know before summer hits that's logical and and then maybe afterwards in Fall as
well yeah you see that that that period as we move into April and May public engagement circling back with school staff kind of evaluating that space summary make sure that we got everything accounted for yeah
all right good to go we are good to go we are moving on to update design update okay so we're going to keep the design update very quick because we spent a lot of time seeing the plans so
uh since we last met uh again meeting regularly with uh the uh leadership team in the district we've been reviewing um square footages and spaces and being sure everything is accounted for and addressed uh we have done some tweaks to
the uh general office admin area based on our security conversation with Town officials um looking at how that flow goes so that slightly changed that area um the uh we have been going through trying to really look at the space summary relative to msba guidelines to
be sure each of those categories and we'll show that further but that's altered what some spaces are categorized categorized as slightly um we've done uh some uh testing of furniture loads in cafeteria and change the kitchen plan um
such that the cafeteria space is On Target perfectly now um so that did move that wall again some circulation changes based on District preferences for where they wanted doors and not um on this floor otherwise this floor's been relatively stable um uh we this plan
doesn't show Furniture but in some of these areas there's specific breakout Furniture we've explored that um in the next plan though next floor you see um there's been a switch here of the social emotional classroom and the staff break
room um flipped that around um some adjustments to the um guidance Wing to create a circulation around so we went we take the plans review them with our um code consultant to be sure that we have uh appropriate egis and corridors and exits and have made all those
changes so that's part of why that occurred uh and to get these uh group uh um spaces in that the U the district wanted um so and then we've done some tweaks on custodial bathroom space locations and utility spaces so no major
major changes from when we uh we met last time just trying to be sure everything's on target for the initial requests and goals hey Tom you would ask something about support staff and spacing did we address that I'm sure we
did i' be calling question you were like there was like three admins versus four or four versus five three secretaries question yeah that that question about the number secret we did I talked to Dory and it was addressed thank you okay um so in the next slide you'll see
an overview of and this is again going to be kind of high level but remember when I presented in the PSR the space summary and how that works with the msba grant it's by division of square footage so uh you have core academic education
art music vocational um Health fizzed Etc so it's not just the overall and you get you know x amount reimbursed overall you have to kind of align it to what their expectations for a school of 665 middle schoolers is in Massachusetts and
what they're looking for though they're going to also consider what programs you're running currently um plus they'll give special consideration to your um special needs uh requests and every District gets uh kind of a different
adjustment review of that by desie um so in comparing where we were by area to where uh we were at PSR um were pretty On Target cuz the core academic shifted because we actually brought our uh it increased because we brought in um the
math and lit lab that hadn't been accounted for previously um there was a classroom adjustment where we actually took from other which is unreimbursed category took our health classrooms and put them back into that category so that should be generally a good um uh
condition so I expect those to be reimbursed special education went up based on our review and shifting around uh some of our intervention and support spaces and sizing those to the final plan and that's reviewed by desie specifically art and music has always
been high compared to mba's standard so it's an area that the district May um get hit a little bit more because you have a very robust music program but we've always talked about that and the msba will take that into consideration um the auditorium is not shown there
it's shown in other which is you know which has gone down which is a good change um but that's still accounting for the full Auditorium size um health and fed we did reduce the gym because as we started working through planning we realized that we were really carrying a
full high school with bleacher area and since we really didn't need that much bleacher we took that down um and that's I think very helpful because that that extra um Beyond 6,000 would would not have been reimbursed so that's an area you're you've improved in
um through this phase um Media Center uh dining medical Are all uh consistent with where they were before um uh we did increase um guidance um that was because of request for uh additional group um
support space in the guidance division so admin guidance went up a little bit um and then as a whole other went down which is very good um so overall we're lower than we were at PSR but not by a lot um I think probably all in all
it hasn't changed dramatically from a reimbursement standpoint um and uh overall in size it's it's you know about where we expected to be nothing has changed dramatically we still are providing 900 foot classrooms throughout
um and meeting you know we've consistently met and reviewed a lot of these space sizes with the district um the grossing is a little bit higher than it was um and that's got to do with uh closet spaces so for instance we did allow for a Theater Arts closet to store
for the after school programs I'd say in general we've been a little bit more generous on this project in circulation and storage than some projects I've seen where everybody Cuts Tight To The Bone um so that's something we can still address um before this phasee is is over
if we want it to tighten up a little bit more um and we can also look at how we can kind of really explore you know whether some of that might want to just be contributed you know assigned to the specific program area you know that's that's allowable to won't probably make
any difference to the the grant process so all in all it's pretty good when the value Engineering Process happens is there attention during that process to um spaces that are
reimbursable versus spaces that are not reimbursable or or are you looking at it more as just the whole estimate and the whole the whole building it's more the ladder with the cost estimators they don't care at all about msba reimbursement they're really looking at
materials and square footage comes into account there just in terms of amount of material that you need but in terms of what's reimbursed or not that gets you know Colliers and jry way will'll do the
best we can to identify those items and then part of it is you just have to wait and see how the negotiation goes with the IND it could potentially inform the feedback that we provide though right in terms of like certainly you know if we see okay what what we've stated before
what gets difficult is you can't at this point sort pull something out of the middle of the building you know so that's where it gets a little trickier so it a lot of the V is about you at PSR they had exactly the square footage a little more and they were applying that
number based on estimated cost of other projects like this so now they'll be looking at at same square footage so we're in good shape on that relative to to the estimating process so it becomes a material choices about okay how much
uh uh epoxy uh Tazo do we have in the project and you know is that going to be the difference where we've made different decisions all right keep going um Brian is on the phone we just wanted to share uh um an update on this
evolving plan and share some of what went into the estimating um set I believe Ran's here not maybe he's not maybe he wanted us to speak to it this is just an update really so we we uh had we shared with you a site plan before um
there concerns raised were uh we shared two options remember and there's a preference for the slightly more organic one so this is kind of a merge of the two but it's also a simplification overall so there are a lot of uh a lot of um kind of walkways and uh different
tread materials and paths that were explored um so this tried to eliminate a lot of that while retaining the the bming and the the screening um making a more clear singular kind of area the for the um the outdoor um teaching space and
simplifying some of the the benching areas uh and removing in these areas some of the complexity of those spaces including the the kind of a raised um um work surface that was shown in the art area so uh it we believe it's quite a
bit simpler and what we held on here in in cost we felt was helpful to the estimating process at this point to not you know not reduce Beyond too much of a point um the next this one shows a little bit more uh of that
closeup um so in this area you're taking instead more of a rain Garden approach and then carrying that to this area which would be a bit more of a biosil this is that teaching area we talked about that these two Wings can go out to and use as an outdoor classroom this is
the Outdoor Classroom outside of the art area with just loose Furnishings as opposed to anything built in other than a seating area um and this is a dining area with some loose Furnishings um uh that are will be included in the site budget um and then
this kind of slightly Terrace seating area that allows teachers to kind of look down over the entire area we've pulled the the trees away from the building significantly um and and have met with this team and the mechanical electrical
utility team and with the town uh regarding uh utilities to review um some of the loading and how uh utilities are arriving at the building and you'll hear a little bit more about that from the mechanical team so so on this one the
field is flipped the field yeah it's just cut off yeah it's more of a zoomed in oh okay I thought it was going the other way that one okay just just zooming perpendicular to it okay good so we talked a lot about
maintenance and our in ility to really cover a lot is there is there a lot of planting on that or is that mostly the trees uh it's trees and low ground cover that's consistent that doesn't
require um that doesn't require so we've tried to really have this conversation about mowing so where there's mowing it's just straight mowing um and then this this area here these areas are would not require mowing right so that's more ground cover approach and that's
why this is kind of treated more as a natural landscape and designed for super low maintenance so ground cover is not nothing we have to maintain it should be by Naturally by so they're moving increasingly towards that and again this is you know this will keep getting REI
revised and working through DD and CD but the intent is very much heard to to have uh low maintenance I'd say the one area that I think you know Brian still really wants us to hold in the budget and keep EXP floring is uh is pavers as
opposed to just um concrete um and actually thinks it's a better longer term maintenance condition but there's some concern and hesitation so we want to be sure that we explore that and we've been talking a lot about the detailing on that um so that is showing
that um for reasons that I think he feels are really worth exploring with the district rather than than cutting at this point so so during the security portion you guys talked about did like the tree cover come up like like so close to the school
in terms of having too many trees near the school yeah like places to hide sorry to think that way but no not with security okay come we do have to Circle back with that security because you left us with a series of questions relating to security
systems and so we do have to Circle back with that group so we can we'll have an opportunity to talk to them about that I guess and and we will continue to you know in every phase yeah yeah awesome
question so U moving on just we're going to go into a a lengthy discussion with our uh engineering team we hope it won't be terribly boring um it felt really important for us to share some of the process so I wanted to just preface this
by saying saying that what we're doing at this phase a lot of the this is and will continue to be an optimization process particularly now when you're talking about all electric schools with a higher climate priority in the state and a much more stringent stretch code
rather than just oversizing all your mechanical systems we try really hard to design such that you're not oversizing and overspending in your operating costs so that requires a real process so we' we've been exploring with them inch ation options around the building window
options around the building um all these types of levers essentially that we can control that the combination of which will give us we hope the the right building and their cost benefits to different things so it's required that we have our model but then the the the mechanical team builts an energy model
just for study purposes to explore different options so I want to just introduce our team um to talk a little bit about the system selection process run through some of that just so everybody's understand understanding what we've been working on and how that actually relates and why you kind of want to hear about it before we get to
those ve questions because you'll see that there's there's kind of a a cost benefit relationship to some of these choices that we're going to going to be making so um can you all introduce yourselves uh yep I'm me and Ian Don here with LM
Consulting and I'm Greg Eep with Ln I'm Scott Alexander with Ln Consulting start my camera is uh giving me problems okay you guys you can take it away and walk us
through yeah um yeah so hi everybody um just wanted to kind of go go through the canical systems uh kind of the basis of design um and then please feel free to speak up if you have any questions uh as we go through this um try to keep it kind of short and and open it up for
questions I guess as we go through um so brief overview the the system select that we are selecting as a base of design here is a is a closed loop geothermal system uh utilizing water source heat pumps for conditioning the building um as part of that and uh with
Greg's assistance where we're basically running energy models uh and we utilize that in order to um obviously do some envelope assistance uh and make some of those decisions but also decize the mechanical equipment um generate operational costs uh and then and one of
the big ones is to properly size the geothermal wh Hole Field um and that helps to minimize a greatly minimize initial upfront costs uh Greg will be able to show you some of that as we get going to show some of the significant differences that um that his modeling
can can basically point out uh and why doing it correctly and making these decisions is is good to save money I guess on the on the initial costs as well as to save energy and to make sure the system performs correctly um I guess we can go to the next slide I got a question on that slide more of the
ble field what was that I I got a question on that slide um the last slide is that desires to show the geothermal system has the lowest LCC uh what do you mean by that but why why I guess specifically why does it say
desire uh basically to show that's that we're making the correct decision uh to to utilize this type of system so that's mostly that's what that means basically like we're we're we're selecting this there's a reason we're
selecting this because uh based on our our energy modeling our past experience geothermal systems uh perform uh extremely well have low energy consumption and uh through the life cycle cost analysis to show uh that it
is beneficial from a life cycle cost standpoint so is the intent we're going to contrast this with like air source okay so you're Prov so we're proving it yeah no no but if it is proven like when how do we shift and pivot right that's
why I asked desire makes it sound like what this is what we want to show right not what we're showing but I I I think I suit me no I'm I'm with youire we want to prove that we're making the right decision and and that everyone here is making the right
decision to do this and even for me like if a different system might be cheaper but maintenance and everything else is offset like if your team doesn't have to go in and you know fix it all
the time because you were saying the closed loop the pumps last xline you know there's really it's because it's closed there's really nothing to do then that decision still becomes a decision yes yeah yeah at least for me yeah
that and that's correct and part of geothermal systems um you can keep going I guess for the next Slide part of the geothermal system is that there is an inherent Simplicity to uh the infrastructure portion of it um basically a geothermal system consists of the bhole field which you're you're
seeing here highlighted in blue or green sorry uh these B holes are drill can I stop you there for a second go ahead um so you said two different things you said well field and then you said b b field right Well to Well to people in
this town is going to say that the water can get contaminated versus saying a bore field I think which specifies that it's a closed system and it is a closed system I I understand that I'm just when we use our vernacular I just think we need to be
careful of not changing what we're saying if you're saying it's a bfield versus a well but you're using them interchangeably people are going to get the wrong idea yeah and that I miss it's a b Hole Field it's a Clos loop it's a Clos Loop B Hole uh with a supply
and a return pipe HTP pipe that's uh bued in that's uh inserted into the bore hole and then filled with a thermally conductive grout um which seals off uh basically the groundwater from uh the surface
water and so perfect thanks this is just showing a preliminary layout of where those four holes would be Loc ated um they are piped together in a reverse return configuration uh all that just means that we're equalizing flow uh through
the individual B holes uh and then they are brought back into the mechanical room um we have currently we're planning on multiple Loops four Loops um what that means that you're able to isolate uh an individual Loop if there was an
issue um and still will have the other say three or or however many the other ones we have operational um so there's a little bit of redundancy there is there redundancy in the number Loops is it like n plus1 say again is there a true redundancy in the number of Loops is
there an additional Loop compared to the base case not an additional Loop no um we have redundancy just uh some additional capacity in the system but it's uh the current design I don't believe is going to have a full redundancy of 25 plus% we we might um
once we get through the full full design process but uh that may not always be the case U and then yeah so basically the system utilizes a propan glycol solution um which is the energy transfer medium and then that that is what's utilized uh
that's piped throughout the facility to the individual water source heat pumps um which will actually heat and cool the facility so that brings us to the next side so space conditioning throughout the facility is via water source heat pumps um they utilize a refrigeration
cycle to provide heating or cooling uh and they have an air coil so they it's an air-based system uh all the individual water source heat pumps are connected to the same water loop um and what that means is that any individual heat pump can be in heating mode or
cooling mode uh at any given time essentially um and that allows energy sharing throughout the facility so a space that's in heating mode is able to share energy with any space in cooling mode um and it's obviously very
efficient to do this um it also gives a lot of flexibility uh to make sure that we're able to you know if if you have certain zones that are like a server room for instance uh always in cooling we're able to to take that energy and put it back into the common Loop U and exchange it during the winter for any
other space um the individual spaces will have a a thermostat um local local control will be limited uh and that can be up to the discretion of the of the school um you can have
couple degrees up and down um and then there a dead band between Heating and boing um and all filters will be bur 13 filters um yep so this slide roof amount energy recovery units so this is the uh pieces of equipment uh this is just an
example of a Erb that will provide the ventilation air for for all spaces in the facility Uh current plan is to utilize uh basically four units that are purely uh ervs for for uh ventilation um another Erv will be dedicated to the
kitchen and then we have a couple air handling units um that will actually provide heating and cooling for the larger Auditorium and gymnasium spaces basically these units have uh probably hard to read but in the very center there it's an acur block U energy
recover core uh it's a dual core that basically continually flips uh air flow to and fro um through the core so essentially it's continuously exchanging energy um and it exchanged both uh uh sensible energy and
uh moisture so heat and moisture is exchanged um these dual cores are extremely efficient they're like 85 Plus per efficient uh at exchanging ventilation there which is why we don't have any conditioning within the units typically um a lot of that can be done at the heat bup
itself and then these would be located on the roof uh maintenance for these is typically uh filter changes um and surfice in the fans if they ever fail um but they're they're pretty low main at items and then uh this so this is just
kind of a preliminary roof plan of where those uh units are located the kind of orangish brown is where the Erv is located uh basically we'll have a single Erv dedicated to each wing for ventilation air um and then the Erv on
the far right will kind of also do uh the auditorium the gymnasium and all the locker spaces along with the cafeteria Erv number well it's not number here but it's number five but it's the one that's over the kitchen uh it's dedicated the kitchen to provide
ventilation there for the kitchen as well as Heating and Cooling um and then the the two air handling units in in kind of green blue there they have built-in water source heat pumps within them um to provide the heating and cooling for the larger
spaces uh again the ventilation air would be provided by a separate airb um but uh the actual heating cooling provided by those and they have economizer capabilities which is a which is a requirement Ian can I interrupt real
quick just on that same Ro roof plan the areas in Gray are quote unquote PV ready areas so that's to that question you had earlier on about putting PV on later and so making sure that we have the electrical infrastructure for PV to go in those areas as well as our structural
engineer taking that into account yep and keeping these units uh so they're not shading the PV is is also also important and it's a little hard to tell but just it you know what you also can't tell is this is a sloping area
sloping area so what we're also trying to do is hide these so that they're not visible um from the residents aside you know and from the front of the school so trying to be mindful of view and then this slide just kind of
gives a just a little overview of how the the airbase system is laid out um so you have a roof mounted energy recovery unit uh that's that has both outut air and exhaust air components to it um we are basically every individual's Zone uh
gets a variable air volume box uh to control the ventilation air that's either extracted from or delivered to each individual Zone um so if you have a classroom for instance each classroom gets a water source heat bump uh that water source heat bump will completely
recirculate the air within that specific classroom but the Erv will provide out air directly to that that zone and extract exhaust air directly from that zone um and then that's so that's individually controlled so each
individual space that has uh you know occupants or like a classroom for instance will have a CO2 Monitor and that will control how much ventilation ER is being provided there so CO2 levels rise the bab Box is open uh and move more ventilation there to maintain the
CO2 levels in the space the the fans that are within the energy of recovery units will then modulate up or down as necessary to kind of maintain um uh with a static pressure within the duck work but it that that's how they they react
to the the demand and then um so this is just kind of a picture of what the B boxes look like so these are they're just a damper with the with air flow sensors and a damper controller uh so they're again monitoring monitoring the air has G
through them uh in a classroom if we if design air flow is 400 CFM and we need design these modulate up and they're maintaining 400 CFM of air flow that was kind of all for me unless you guys have any mechanical questions we can jump over to energy
modeling I guess uh the first slide had the bore field where is that relative to the or on the site plan uh that's uh up just uh west of the cafeteria and gymnasium area um we in the PSR phase we
were showing it to the front of the school um we've shifted over and uh you'll hear that we've reduced the the uh quantity of it as well that's the playing field we see just to the right of exactly yeah so we're staying away from the synthetic tur field um staying
out from underneath the building and trying to get it as close to the mechanical room as possible isn't a lot a lot of that area is paved over is that correct it's a mixture yeah so our basketball courts are kind of in that upper right corner um and then you
can see a little bit of the uh emergency vehicular circulation around the school and that's not problematic having that paved over at all so it's what it's about the those are about 6 feet below right anyway yeah yeah they're buried about 5
to six ft down um once they're installed uh they really don't need to be serviced um unless leak is developed or discovered um otherwise they they could you know they're going to last 50 plus years if in a larger plan the utility
there's a lot of utilities coming up and then down into the mechanical room so that was part of why we shifted it that direction are there any kind of limitations of what we can do in the war field as far as you know equipment traffic adding out buildings anything
like that shouldn't be uh issues or limitations on that front um one of the biggest ones will be if you guys do future work to understand where the Bal field is to try not to disturb that so if you're trying to dig five or six feet down you could
be running into some of the piping that's there but um there should be some Dig Safe tape and stuff like that uh so that's just something to be aware of but um the Earth you know the Earth above it should be a to withand what's going to actually be uh and you know driving
across it or what's going to happen there all right thanks I good overview um everyone I'm Greg I've been working on the model for the last um couple of weeks and specifically the last uh last few days preparing for this um
the the sculpt for energy modeling as I see it for this project um is going to be touching on several different phases and aspects of the project um so the process is going to include architectural and mechanical design assist of the proposed building it's going to include a schematic design
utility incentive report life cycle cost analysis and Lead documentation most of these slides and the images and tables are going to contain a lot of information that is going to be difficult to read and understand in a in a format like this know that all of this stuff is going to
be included in the design the the architectural and mechanical design assis is going to be included in the schematic design report and it'll be all detailed and written up and explained in much more detail than I could uh go through in a meeting like this so what
you're seeing here on this slide is um the this the specific School detailed hbac modeling um I mean and if you can believe it every single component of the mechanic system is included in the model that's from all variable speed pumps all variable speed fans water source heat
pumps the ground heat exchanger absolutely everything so that is basically what the schematic looks like showing all the connections and all of the equipments the Erb is connecting to Zone groups um and even the domestic water system and one thing I want to point out if you go back up to the top
of that slide is that we current currently don't have a ground teat exchanger object shown because we're in the process of sizing that right now so what I have are district objects and those objects are essentially load gobblers so depending on the configuration of the architectural system um which is the things that we're
varying right now the load to the ground is changing so keep in mind that the rest of the mechanical system is fixed for all of the design assist process but we are taking a look at how it impacts the loads on the ground okay so I've been working with um
with Dory and the architect team team to come up with a parametric analysis and this table here essentially describes in details all of the Alternatives or iterations that were done in the parametric analysis so what what you can do is you're allowed to compare two designed
variables of multiple iterations um and then you can output a variety of um of output variables to see how the design variables affect the outputs so what we did was as you can
see on the left the design variable the first one was the construction template alternative one was essentially the ashray code minimum Baseline and you can see some of the uh envelope u values and the infiltration metric that was used and then the next one was the
Massachusetts stretch code and the associated envelope values and then it was JW's proposed um proposed envelope the one that included 2 in of underslab installation
and then another one where we recommended that they that we model and prove that no underslab insulation is going to be required and in fact we show that it has a very low impact and it's certainly worth saving the uh couple hundred grand and removing that that component so those are the four
construction templates now the window templates uh there are six of them um I was able to get from the bottom three I was able to get um some detailed information on some of the glazings that the architect is considering um that's alternative four
five and six uh alternative one was a uh a sample of a triple pane window that I grabbed from my library you can see it has a low UV value but a fairly High solaine coefficient the next is what Massachusetts iecc 2021 code requirement
window is and then I threw in a thermochromic window because I've never checked that out before um I still need to spend a little bit more time understanding that alternative okay so basically what we have here is 4 * 6 is 24 possible combinations so 24
simulations were fired off uh simultaneously and if you go to the next slide you'll see what that data looks like so we have a big big table here the uh the design variables are the two far right columns and the rest are the output variables that I chose and the
output variables that I chose were mostly focused on to see how the load on the ground was reacting so I pull out the the cooling electric energy and the Heating and electric energy but I focused and the lighting energy which would would vary based on the glazing
visible transmittance but what I was most interested in is these District loads district is is basically the name of the object you can think of that it is geothermal cooling load the kbtu is annual energy load and then I calculated
a a b B ratio and that's basically when you sum up all of the energy that the that the ground is either sourcing or um or what the building is rejecting or sourcing uh you have a uh you have a
ratio um and so that's what that column is the other two are Peak which mean it's your sort of your your largest demand your largest cooling demand or your largest heating demand okay so it's a lot of information here and we believe
you yeah yeah yeah and and the if you want to dig into this or ask questions you can um it' probably be best to wait for the report but I'll try to expl David would you like to ask a question I'm absorbing it right yeah yeah I mean there's just a bunch of numbers but but um why don't we just um go to the next
slide and this will be a sample of I have two two graphs here which basically are much easier to visualize the results uh each design variable has has its own graph so this is just some of this is just showing that a whole lot of detailed work is being done and that I'm
working with both Ian and Dory to make sure that your building is is optimized so I think from now on that table and this slide that's what I want want you to know so you can go down to um you can go down to the next one same thing it's just showing the relationship of all of
these Alternatives with the various um output variables but I think the next slide is probably the most interesting and the biggest takeaway here so of all those Alternatives can you hold on one second I I would just point out though for the
public like this information is part of the public record and available I know we have a lot of engineers in town who will definitely yes exactly and so glad to know that this is available in case the public want to want to see it yes so
thanks sorry I just wanted to to make sure that that that was pointed out that's great and I love discussing this so hope somebody has questions that we can answer you know sometimes there's interesting phenomenon that people don't
expect um so so of those 24 iterations I decided to grab four as you can see here and the iteration number just matches with the combination of um design variables that were in the previous table um the way I made my decision was
I basically sorted by the peak cooling demand because all of the combinations uh show that the building is cooling dominant um and then I was noticing the imbalance and so let's just get into it basically iteration five is more or less
the best combination and it it resulted in the lowest number of War holes so that's a good thing that means we're saving quite a bit of money by going through this process and finding um the right configuration that can reduce the
size of the ground sheat exchanger so just looking at this Top Line you'll see okay we have about a cooling IM balance of 7.4 mil there about seven times more cooling energy rejected to the ground then is sourced um and the driving factor for sizing the B hole was that cooling
imbalance and what that means is I model it out for 30 years and as the ground warms up I want to make sure that in 30 years we're still providing reasonable water temperature to the heat pumps usually it's about in the 80° temp after
30 years if it goes above 85 I add more capacity okay and so that that that iteration included the architect's proposed template without um ground slab installation and a glazing window KF 79
in the plan E1 which had a um a low solar heat gain Co all right so going to this next one which was oh sorry I just want to talk a little bit more about this table because the next one is 50 uh 504 hole configuration so if you go with the
package that over insulates and then um under solar heat gain coefficient which is iteration 16 there you have a coolant imbalance of 17 times and then the B Hole Field goes up to 50 and again that is driven by this long-term heat
accumulation in the ground so then if you sort of flip the scenario and you go to more or less the the least amount of insulation the ashray 16 Baseline um you get really nice balancing on the ground but then the B Hole Field has to go back
up in size just to meet that firste heating demand so the takeaway here is that the architect is has a great construction template and we're going to make sure that the windows have a low sort heat gain
coefficient all right so um question about the Assumption for like cooling energy demand annualized is there a consideration that the building is not in use at least to the same extent during the summer yeah that was calculated there as well so we
did gather information on usage and and I think there's actually even a little information might to show that but we we gathered wait and then the reason I even ask is when you look at the peak heating to Peak cooling they're not so different but annualized cooling is significantly higher than annualized
Heating and I don't really need to get into the why but um yeah it it made me wonder like why are we seeing so much more energy consumption for cooling compared to heating when historically it's the other way around right and the the peak uh demands are are not as
different they're not a factor of seven different they're what 50% different yeah that's right and that would be because the peak cooling demand is occurring outside of the summer it's occurring when the school is occupied most likely in either August or June
right so probably the uh July might be your design day um and the reason that and you have to remember these are uh loads to the ground so um it's more or less the condenser load on the building so all of
the compressor heat and all of the pump heat is also included in the cooling load so that drives the cooling load up so essentially hurts the cooling load and helps the heating load that makes sense yep got it so the LMS proposed
template number one that's the construction template is that insulated or non-insulated one oh it's it's insulated that's the the slab though the slab is not not that is not insulated slab that that is a non-insulated slab and then the second one is recommending to remove the ground floor
in surprised us yeah I understand very little of this but um was it was was it the iteration that you're pursuing clearcut or was it
sort of window the window study was sorry the window study was the the element that was most interesting to that we were surprised by the the slab insulation issue um because the new stretch cut really kind of assumes and encourages a lot of factors and that's
one of those factors that's presumed and then if you're able to demonstrate modeling that it's actually not helpful that changes your your approach and at this level of building you have to do a lot of modeling and prove what you're doing to uh doar um as you're going through it so they they don't want you
to just go by rule of thumb so we go through this you may start with certain rules of them and then work from there the window the um um solar heat gain was the surprise to us and that's really what you're how you're combining what what your um shading level within the
window is or what how much Heat's coming through the window and how you can control for that with different types of window packages um that was really a huge impact um and that's something that we're still looking we're also still looking at shading and the impact shading systems have um shading systems can be expensive
so all these things are just kind of variables that we want to understand because you can throw everything at it but then not everything's equally valuable and when you say slab insulation you're talking about mitigation of heat transfer through the foundation to the ground yeah yeah so we'll still keep Insulation at our
foundation walls and for the first four feet of the slab that's really protecting heat loss to the exterior but once you go past that 4T in the middle of the school there's very little it's a it's a negative impact to add insulation under there which we would surprising to
us that's correct and in fact the proposed template includes 4 feet of horizontal perimeter insulation just to sort of help that um cuz all cuz all the ground transfer is really occurring at the perimeter is AOS to in the center of the building
okay so after all of that I took iteration five created a uh an actual closed loop ground heat exchanger object and a software called Ground Loop design or GLD uh imported that back into design builder for a proper simulation which means I've removed those District load
gobler objects and put in an actual closed loop ground te exchanger I ran iteration five so we're showing an eui of 19.4 which is great um you know this is still still early days like I don't have kitchen information and the floor
plan and the useage just still changing but as of now we are on Target and under Target the Target being 25 in case you case you didn't know that um and then um I also modeled the eversource G3 electricity tariff that has its own
caveats um I have some questions about the Tariff I need to call utility but I'm finding uh about $164,000 per year in Opex um and these are just a few tables that will be included in the report you know there's the energy end use where it breaks down all of the end
uses and then I just threw in a building area um and a window to wall ratio just you know it's just sort of good checks for the architect to see there okay so this again is just proving basically quality control that I am
looking at everything in detail um here you can see this is essentially the the geothermal loads red being um heat sourced from the ground um blue beam heat rejected to the ground and you can clearly see that the summer is um
unoccupied and in um and in setback condition there we kind of Jump by the Opex assessment yeah I was going to say good ask please so this is this is our operating cost for heating and cooling of the facility yeah it's the entire
operating cost your your your entire electrical bill okay including lighting and everything everything it's all in this isn't just about the okay so this is absolutely everything the full electric kitchen all of the HB all the blood loads I would say we're still at
SD and he's he was working off of I mean I you know we're in an early phase but for the modeling guy well and my question is upex for a comparable facility that is not ground Source
geothermal and now I'm talking about total total analysis yeah yeah how does that compare how does 165 annually compare to you know a facility of the same size that's on oil heat or gas heat
do we do we know approximately um well I can say that unfortunately in Vermont where I'm most familiar with these projects um I will show that we'll save over 50% in energy and maybe only 10% to 20% in cost
because natural gas is so cheap and electricity is so expensive but it's still a net Savings of cost is what you're saying yeah usually a net savings um it helps more if the facility is occupied during the
summer um but um I will be doing a I'm sure I will be doing a fossil fuel system comparison for lead if not for the incentive report um so we will eventually have that comparison and that
will be done before the life technically the full life cycle analysis is a DD deliverable we deliver a version now and then another version when the system is more optimized in DD okay so you get kind of an assessment along the way this
version we remember at PSR we did take uh the cost of an air source heat pump and a ground Source heat pump so those were based on sort of Apples to Apples of that that so now we have more detailed geothermal we don't have the complain so we're comparing those and the ashray Baseline as he talked about
and there'll be a report on the comparison of those um but this is they're still trying to optimize and optimize further so we're going from that point and getting better and better into DD okay and solar throws off all the calculations anyway right because that that's a cost but then that cuts
out a lot of our right that'll reduce further we're asking for the information on the cost of solar with the cost estimate and we'll have the the the the positive benefit of the solar production to add in which will just be added information on top but we're trying not
to to use that as part of our life cycle analysis it'll be incorporated in the report but because we can't guarantee that you're going to do that after the Project's over we we want you to have the information but we're not relying on that as a part of that it does for the
Mass Save incentive solar I think it's yeah the solar does play into the Mass Save incentive calcul of eui um it does not play into the stretch code energy modeling at all so yeah if we went any other well if we went pure electric I
guess but if we want other uh ways of heating cooling solar wouldn't even be an option it wouldn't matter well you always have electrical use so and electrical use for a school is always considerable so we had gas helps that's
solar wouldn't help with that right yeah I mean if there's onite solar I can certainly model that and include the net metering and you can see those results for for lead that is going to have a big impact um so if you have onside solar your lead points are going to go up
pretty significantly okay go to the next this is um this is my estimate on occupancy you can see total I'm assuming total occupancy generally around 750 you know students and staff um I assumed a monthly event either in the gym or in
the auditorium so that's what those little Peaks are and then you can see summer not being uh not being very occupied um then you can see very Grace holidays so this just shows you that the schedule is detailed go to the next one so this is the hold on one second um question for
Mark so we get school we've got the geothermal it's probably cheaper to run than the High School System would you consider like moving summer programs there it'd be cooler more comfortable options would
that change the modeling at all it would not in a negative yes I'm going to say that would that would pack the model in a positive way right no no oh okay I mean I mean I mean yes and no your energy is going to go up if
you're using it in the summer so if if if you have heavy summer use then we're going to start getting close to that 25 number right um but I think if you use it in the summer I think the comparison of Opex to say fossil fuel Baseline will
start to look even better yeah so if you're comparing it between the two schools in a s yeah like if I'm we have to keep the high school open with which isn't really a air conditioning system but a I don't even know what we call it dehumidification dehumidification system I mean that it
might be cheaper to do it at the middle school I see yeah as far as your your the cost to operate your system yeah you know moving into this new Top Line facility would probably be a wise choice yeah all right the next few are just like other samples of quality control
graphs that I include in my report that um only the Curious engineer types might review but basically what we're showing here is the for a summer week I think this is actually the first week of school for 2025 um we're showing the ground heat exchanger heat transfer rate and the
mass flow rate on the top and then on the bottom we're showing the uh the heat pump Loop um Supply water temperature and mass flow rate and then here this is another level of detail I'm going to look at representative classrooms and I'm going
to take a look at um you know summer winter weeks to make sure that the performance of the hbac system is operating um as expected uh that top graph is just showing the Zone temperature you can see it's between 70 and 75° um when it starts to flatten out at
75° and you go down you'll see that the uh W Zone water source heat pump and the middle graph is kicked on with a cooling load um and then the bottom is the ventilation air flow rate which is modulating to maintain uh CO2 so I can
actually I can also control the model based on those requirements that uh Ian is specifying in his construction documents so that's what that is and then here's a sample the life cycle cost analysis calculation if you're curious about how I do it this is it um it's
essentially Gathering the annual energy costs and the annual maintenance costs then it is gathering the expected uh equipment replacement costs and um you know I have to know what the life cycle you know what the life expected lifespan
is of that equipment and then I also apply an inflation rate to calculate the future cost and then um we get usually get the total installed the initial total installed costs from the estimators so that's what that line is and then the bottom life cycle cost analysis I
basically sum up the onetime payments um I sum up the annual operating costs and then I calculate a uspw which is a uniform series present worth factor and that's the function of
t a discount rate I typically and most for most these types of calculations use 5% and then the number of years typically 30 years if if there's a standard that it's 40 even better and then basically what you do is you compare the present worth of all of your
Alternatives and you want to choose the lowest present worth and this is not our project on in numbers this is just the what the analysis not ready we don't have any of this information we don't have our proposed system specified fully
so we just thought that you guys might like to see how I plan on calculating that and for this hypothetical scenario or this reference scenario the actual the installed costs for the two cases are not so different is that consistent between that is what we
that's what we expect to see Ian can speak more with more Authority than I can but um generally with the uh with the incentives for the geothermal systems we are finding the toll uh yeah the the installed cost to be brought right in line with the sort of air source
competitor and there's a slide right it's usually with the incentives they they get a lot closer um uh it might still be a little bit of a premium for geothermal um once we once we get hard numbers we'll be able to to get that
comparison a little closer but uh there are significant incentives for the geothermal system which help so that initial total installed cost Row from the bottom that that's after incentives yes and and that's how we will be trying
to calculate the uh per I think for the very first slide that he presented we're going to be making sure that the incentives are included in the total installed costs and the blue case is gas hot water am I reading that right uh that
yes yep yep gas domestic C water I believe this was for a um a multif family resident campus so there was a significant domestic C water load okay in our two cases would be all electric in either case is that
right I he said he there's also the asid base which is not necessarily all electric yeah I got to get clear on which Alternatives need to be included in the life cycle cost and analysis I think it might just be the proposed mechanical systems that the estimator is
pricing and then we have the information from PSR for the air source heat pump so they're they they're taking your your guidelines for that as well so that that figure you already have um so it's supposed to be air source versus ground Source but then as a part of the stretch
code assessment um you know there's the ashray that is also a reference for some of your decisions I don't know if you do a full comparison to that but it's helpful to have some baseline information to come and know the projections on the 20-year replacement is that like as they
break down replays as like should we plan in advance for that yeah um I'll let Ian speak he knows more than I do I mean I don't see it any different than like ambulance or a fire truck so I'm just trying to should be
right I mean this is go ahead I go ahead and do you want can you talk about the I different parts of the system have different life cycle right um life expectancy that's yeah yeah correct yeah so the basically water source heat pumps
typically have a 20year lifespan um obviously some will last a little longer you know there are plenty water s heat pumps that have lasted 30 plus years um industry standards is an expectation of about 20 years um and that's kind of the one of the benefits of of geothermal
system like this because uh there's a lot of individual zones and individual pieces of equipment that are uh slight you know somewhat isolated um you do not need to preventatively replace heat pumps um so a heat pump fails in a
particular classroom it only fails in that classroom um so if that thing was to fail you have it can uh you know some of it can be repairing of a compressor for instance uh but if it comes time to like full replacement uh that unit would become isolated the classroom would be
uh shut down for however long it takes them to drop the unit and install a new one uh and then the system you know that it's put back in back in service um so on individual heat pumps that's that's how that operates uh the circulator
pumps for the facility um see 15 years again there's pumps that have last in 30 40 years but industry is kind of assuming 15 years on those but but those have redundancy uh any one of those were to fail uh you would just swap it out or
or repair a motor what have a component um the ervs and the ahus are some of the bigger components uh they typically have a 20 to 30e light expectancy as well um the ervs you know realistically those can just be repaired in in place for a
lot of other components um the boxes can last over 20 years for sure and it's really just replacing fans as they were to fail uh and then maybe damper blades and perhaps the uh energy recovery core I think Greg that air source system
was comparing to brf but I'm not mistaken right I think this was for Wy rid and I think it was just um Mini Splits yeah so we we've we've definitely heard that the Mini Splits have not been lasting U but
the V systems are different uh we're obviously not comparing that here we'd be compar comparing to a an a water system but um just as a comparison you're asking about do you have to replace the whole system um a vrf system is completely
interconnected uh which is different than this um the individual components can be replaced on as needed basis thanks for hanging in there with me guys basically the takeaway at this phase of the en modeling is that um we you know we're showing at least a 30%
for hole reduction so that is a significant amount of cost savings so um just by going through a design process it's uh it's going to be better than somebody else you might just go with Ru of thumb metrics or um just design AE calculations and not going through this
whole detailed model um and then we've also determined to remove underslab installation this going to be another nice initial cost saver um so the first round was a simultaneous architectural and mechanical design assist now that we have a um more or less have a ground
exchanger sized we can continue this process with some more architectural design assist we can you know continue to get into more detailed proposed constructions and proposed glazing and shading and I'll be able to Output more of a um eui numbers and see how that
varies in addition to OPB and see how that varies um in addition to some exterior window ating analysis so that was sort of the simultaneous round one and then a few more rounds to get of to to continue to optimize the school
thank you what does gym construction and glazing mean just means that uh the architect is considering um some different types of uh construction and glaz each want to
let them know sure so the at the gym gym is the most and the auditorium but the gym in particular because of its orientation location and and the fact that you want this sort of open space we're looking at the possibility of using um U structurally insulated panels
for the roof um so they come pre-fabricated they're both structurally supportive as well as well insulated um and then the possibility then of exposing glue lamb beams inside um rather than just having giant metal trusses you know so we're exploring
whether that has some advantages and disadvantages what the impact might be and then we have different um scenarios the glazing scenario at the gym and it relates to glazing scenarios elsewhere is we're looking at a a product called Solera which is one of many translucent
insulated panels um sort of like cowall but much much much much much better not really the same thing um so cow those those panels you've seen in those you know 70s Z gyms that like uh you can't see through them but you can get the daylight from them so we're we're
looking at a mix of different systems like that in the gym to be sure we get natural light in the gym um and don't uh create glare um and the more natural light we have the more we can reduce um uh electrical use um so you just want to
optimize it really takes takes a long time to simultaneously we have a whole another team working on daylighting modeling looking at the value of different approaches on that we've kind of put a few things in the model and in the cost estimate to explore the last slide
no uh oh yes incentives this is somebody somebody else going to talk Greg just a sec we have a question here so hold on um could you talk about what happens in 30 to 50 years when the system needs to be replaced would it be beneficial to have more bore holes to kind of offset
that at a cost or what does that look like I guess what I'm what I'm trying to wonder is is when the system needs to be replaced is it a whole whole new system is it we can use part of it and build out the new system what what does that look
like yeah there would be no need really no need for full system replacement uh in say 30 years um by by 30 years uh just going based on historical averages all the water source heat pumps will have will be replaced but on a um you
know once you start getting out up there you probably have to replace a certain percentage of them each year uh but again they some of them can be repaired some of them are Dro down uh you know put a new one back in a water source heat pump from you know one manufacturer to the next is quite similar uh the
shape of them um and configuration so that's not a huge it's not a huge task to do that the goal of is to have a lot of those located uh if not all of them located within the corridors um so servicing of those is via the corridor space uh but no like the piping the
piping will last you know it's all copper piping and and uh or steel we at the water you know as long as the water is maintained uh within the system um the water quality piping should last well beyond 20 to 30 years the ground Source uh heat exchanger based of the B
Hole Field should last well beyond 30 years um and then again some of the other components would just be replaced on an as needed basis whether that's a fan or a pump um so there should be no full system replacement needed here Ian what happens if say in
30 years we're finding that the uh the water is coming back too hot in other words the ground heat exchanger is sort of under siiz at this spot at this time you know clearly you could you could add fluid coolers you could you know drill more B holes right yep if additional
cooling is required uh in in the longterm future there are other ways of doing that um whether it's adding B holes um so you can if there's uh sufficient space on the site an additional Loop could be created or another another B Hole uh little set of
B holes can be created um and as Greg mentioned there there's what's called fluid coolers or basically like a dry cooler um which you can basically put something like that on the roof and uh and reject heat to the uh to the uh uh to the ambient environment basically uh
and you do that kind of most of the year uh to to offset your energy and the cooling energy that would be occurring during the summer time so there there are strategies if that was to occur um so it's not it's not fixed by any
means so but again the ble field would would still be operational and still be fine um so leaking a leak is really the only thing that can happen in a ble field that that would make it not function and we've planned for that possibility which is extremely extremely
extremely unlikely but anticipated that by anticipating the possibility if if you needed to connect a temporary system to the building externally so we've you know planned for that yep yeah because it's a a heat pump
system um it operates at a very uh wild water temperature um generally between 40 and 80 degrees and uh it's pretty simple to install a temporary boiler temporary cooler of some sort if if that was ever needed in an extreme emergency
condition um you're basically just maintaining the combined heat pump within that temperature range uh and then you you would then be providing heat or cooling to the entire facility so what's just hypothetical what's the potential disruptor 5 years
from now that says you made the wrong choice is there anything on the horizon the system or the system yeah I mean is there anything on the horizon that we should be like is this a better
choice or is this it right now we don't think so okay we don't think so you mean in terms of future technology that's coming fut technology I mean they perform everything and water source heat pump based system uh it just it fits really
well with an educational uh facility uh many other types as well but uh just the inherent ability for every individual classroom to have independent control uh and then the ability for um essentially extreme redundancy because only one
classroom is affected by any heat pump uh failure um we've we've installed uh a number of schools uh with with water source heat pump and geothermal systems um going back over 15 years and they
they still perform well ly uh so my question would actually um escalate that is this still the best uh course of action if the inflation reduction act incentives aren't here not necessarily we'd have to see
what the initi that would be the life cycle costs um analysis would show would show that so would you like to see that shown in the LCA so with inflation reduction and without CU remember as as we've discussed it the the inflation
reduction Act is uh inform is applied after the fact you know we have to complete it and then apply and then you get it it's not theoretically competitive I understand your point which is under this Administration if they eliminate all of that then that's
the difference and knowing exactly what that amount is and what you might be out if the Trump Administration eliminates it would be good to specifically I mean I would like to see that
sure we have raised that point yeah with the leadership like you know something to know so um so I think we can work that into the life cycle analysis and take a look at that remember part of the argument for this in comparison is the
the lifespan of the system and it's you know durability over 30 years compared to air source heat pumps um kind of part of the parcel of it which was always part of the discussion but yes I raised that point too is that the IRA was part of the conversation
so I do it helps a lot that they're optimizing the system and bringing down the scope of cost and I hope we'll see that in the cost estimate as well any other questions for the engineers or I mean not for the engineers but maybe they what um related to that question is
has has the any of the factors driving the estimate change given the rising cost of raw materials steel other construction materials is that is that going to change well we'll find out at the reconciliation it's a really great
question so let's continue that conversation but I don't want to keep them on if we don't need to is any other questions for the engineers on the system all right cool can we get cus for [Laughter] tonight so we'll find that out I guess I
oh go ahead oh I did want to mention one other thing you were talking about Alternatives um you can have a water surfce heat pump system without without a bore field where you would just have a boiler and a cooling tower um that that that is that can often be a good
alternative if you don't care about carbon pollution or eui or energy you know energy consumption CU if gas is really cheap then maybe that is the best economic decision but I I don't think this project would would necessar
want that I just wanted to throw that out there no I I I appreciate that um you know I think from a town perspective trying to convince anybody to pay for a gas fired system is not going to go over well so I I I think the what you're proposing is unless it was we have a
bylaw on that too yeah oh do we yeah didn't that go through it has to be green we have to look at it at least yeah it wasn't a it was a resolution [Music] essentially so but thanks than that information and one reminder on that
that that we are we have been pursuing the U the green incentive points from msba which aligns you with the um specialized opin code which is the one that is very difficult to do gas
with okay so I had a question along like Marty's like and I'm sure you said reconciliation like the windows they're like those are German windows I believe they are um so ter like I'm not even worried about
tariffs I'm worried about like availability like you like as we choose materials like I know you guys are choosing great materials but it's also based upon availability too is that how we're or you just say
this is the optimum and that window in particular we're in close touch with that a lot of projects are using a particular brand of window I don't want to mention because I feel like that would be somehow wrong propri wise but um there is a window that fits the current stretch coat expectations and
you see a lot of buildings using it we've used it and availability has been a problem so we started experimenting with this company because the performance was was better and uh and the window in particular he talking about the the
79n um is a thermally broken aluminum clad window with a pretty high performance and um we've been working with that company we actually just installed it on our own building because we were and and so we checked on that issue of delivery prior to even entering
it as a basis of design okay um and we also compared it to the window that everybody's using that is harder to get um uh and then I think it is a good question about tariffs like we would probably have to really I think a lot of these windows are coming these triple pane windows are typically coming from
Europe there are not many American suppliers yet but it is possible to run this model with a lower performance value and a lower Baseline costs and see what the impact of that's going to be over time it's almost like a life cycle
analysis just of that decision um because that's precisely why you we're putting it on the table now while we're doing the cost benefit analysis and getting costing information on some of these options we just received filed submits on a project in Northboro and um
they came in uh underneath what the estimators had um the estimators did the estimates prior to any but any mention of tariffs the the steel prices for structural steel actually came in just about On Target so there was no impact it was uh United Steel so they may have
had a reserve stock pile of Steel they could manufacture from what we did see was a a big increase in the in the windows which are aluminum typically so uh and those have a long lead item we're seeing on some cases they want 33 weeks
from the time you you ink the contract check with them before they're going to be delivered on site and installed um so I think there's a lot of question marks in people's minds as to where are we going to end up in price wise on aluminum at that point in time if if anything differs yeah and the other
option that we could talk about that we are installing is a upvc window um which doesn't have the same material durability in a sense but very good thermal performance um and we we have used that on a school we we been seeing
a lot more of that and it may not be as impacted because it's Alum not aluminum um but it has a different kind of durability issue so you know again all these These are fun times to make these decisions because I think it's another
benefit of the fact that we went for a CM at risk because as soon as we get them on board boom cuz one they're biding jobs all the time so they've got that information and then two if there is something that has a very long lead time can try and finalize that early and
actually get that in the works before we're totally done with our documentation and then the other thing is Monday Tuesday I spent both days at Mass Building Trades and um I know the governor signed the
executive order on use of plas for building projects is that going to affect this project in the bid process pla price labor agreement so the basically um we're required to use Union contract open shop which yeah and I mean
I know he is prevailing wage anyways but yeah I mean I don't think I don't know like is there any economic impact on this project I I I would think you had to be more worried about tariffs right now than I would with pla good to know at least we can calculate what a
pla is going to do to the job right now as anybody's guess what the ter is going to do yeah cool not to say I mean I fully support Union so just saying now but I just want to make sure I know the impact of the the
[Music] town all right is there anything else any questions if not motion to adjourn so moved second motion second call for roll call L yes Armen yes Marty yes Nicole
yes and Josh yes and David yes all right we are adjourned thank you best