WINNEMUCCA - Hospital board members approved a bid for upgrading electrical service into the hospital and replacing chillers for the air conditioning system. Two companies submitted bids on the project, and both came in significantly lower than estimated.
Mike Sheppard is the HGH representative for this project, as on all of the hospital's addition and remodeling projects.
Sheppard said the chiller replacement and electrical upgrade project has a fairly long history in planning.
"For some years, the hospital has been under strain in warmer weather because of the age of some of the equipment; some of it is crowding 40 years old," he said.
He noted that electrical requirements increase, not just with the size of the physical plant, but with the power requirements of increasingly hi-tech equipment. Sheppard said the scope and scale of this kind of mechanical and electrical work is not common.
"We were able to cultivate the interest of some firms who are working on large projects like this on army and navy bases, upgrading universities, schools, and hospitals," he said. "We reached out to these firms to help us put together our budgets and specifications and received some good suggestions."
One positive change to the design came after the project was submitted for bid. Electrical subcontractor CR Drake made suggestions that probably saved $50,000 on the project, Sheppard said.
Although only two firms submitted bids for the project, Sheppard said he was satisfied with the low bidder and the price.
That low bidder, RHP Mechanical, has worked for HGH before, doing the hospital's boiler project. Sheppard said the hospital was pleased with the company's work on that occasion. In addition, RHP Mechanical has just completed the chiller upgrade at Sonoma Heights Elementary School.
"We have a very competitive bid from highly qualified contractor," Sheppard said.
The bid came in significantly lower than the amount that had been budgeted for the project, which was $1.7 million. The actual bid came in at $1.13 million. Sheppard said the new chillers will put the hospital's cooling system in the shape it needs to be in and will relieve many maintenance issues.
The electrical upgrade will give the hospital the added capacity required to complete the expansion and remodeling, and will make the needed power available for computers, hospital systems, and upgraded equipment, such as the new Computed Topography (CT) scanner, which could not have operated with the current electrical capacity at the hospital.
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