Gore District Council struggles to heat new $6m building

Friday, 11 June 2021

The new Gore District Council building boasts seven meeting rooms and two interview rooms, but not enough heating on cold days.

The Gore District Council is struggling to heat its new $6 million Civic Administration building, and staff members have been given the option of working from home on “very cold” days.

Council chief executive Steve Parry said the transformer that provided power to the building was undersized.

The inadequacy of the transformer to take the increased power loads only became apparent after staff moved into the building, he said.

The option had been made available for staff to work from home on very cold days, in the interests on comfort, but no staff have taken this up, he said.

The Gore District Council has given staff the option of working from home on very cold days because it is struggling to heat its building. It has ordered a new transformer to run the building.

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“Working at home is only an option on very cold days where the heating struggles to come up to the required temperature due to the need to manage loadings on an under-sized transformer,’’ Parry said.

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Calculations of loading for the building were calculated by an electrical engineer during the design phase of the project and did not highlight the inability of the transformer to cope, he said.

Fresh calculations have now been undertaken and a new bigger 400 KVA transformer has been ordered. The cost of the transformer is $33,056.63, with delivery expected in 18 weeks.

The staff room in the Gore District Council's new office building, when it was opened in January.

The building accommodates about 40 staff, and it is heated by a mechanical ducting system with a series of fans and heating elements throughout.

On zero degree mornings the system is managed manually to prevent overloading the existing transformer.

The council opened the building in January, when Parry said the forecast final cost was $6.02 million, which was about $20,000 over budget.

At the time, human resources manager Susan Jones said staff were looking forward to moving in.

“We’ve had really positive feedback from them, and they’re really excited about the move.

“When you think back to what the old building was like, it’s amazing to have all of this.’’

The additional costs of the transformer would be charged to the Civic Administration Building project, although a portion could get assigned to the library/community rooms project given that it served both facilities, he said.

The new building is 210m² larger than the original offices.