Heating costs $6,000 per month during Irwin office construction

Irwin will be paying $12,000 to provide heat this month and in January for the workers converting a former storefront into administrative offices at the borough building on Main Street.

Borough council this week agreed to pay Sunbelt Rental of North Huntingdon for a temporary heating furnace at a rate of $6,000 per month.

A propane furnace will be installed to heat the workspace for the $1.3 million project, said Shari Martino, borough manager.

Whether the temporary furnace will be needed in February will be discussed next month.

The police department in the rear of the building and borough offices on the second floor have heat this winter, said Chief Dan Wensel.

Councilman Shawn Stitely was upset that the need to heat a workspace in December — when the project initially was to be completed — was not included in the project Irwin approved this summer.

“It wasn’t on the (initial) contract. Imagine that. … It wasn’t in the specs. It just blows my mind,” Stitely said of the need for the temporary heating.

Stitely has criticized the several change orders required for the first-floor conversion, which have driven up the cost of the work.

Council last month approved about $148,000 in change orders for the office conversion, some of which was caused by unforeseen problems that arose in remodeling a century-old building, borough officials said.

The office conversion project is not scheduled to be done until April because of revisions that were needed to finish the job and make the space comply with regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act.