Pepperell Middle may have no urinals
The exclusion could save the system around half a million dollars.
Plans to demolish Pepperell Middle School and build a new school where the old one stood are falling into place with Floyd County Schools finding new ways to cut back construction costs for the new facility.
David Van Hook, director of facilities at Floyd County Schools, said not including urinals in any of the school’s bathrooms could save the system up to half a million dollars in construction costs.
“Believe it or not, urinals are more expensive than toilets, and they break more,” Van Hook told the board of education Monday night. “We will save money in operating expenses but also by being able to use the different fixture calculations we will be able to cut an entire restroom out of the school.”
He said Superintendent Jeff Wilson had him call schools around the state of Georgia and received good feed- back.
“Basically the boys restrooms and girls restrooms will be identical,” he said.
“From a cleaning standpoint, boys can’t hit the target no matter what it is,” Wilson added.
Another way the system is looking to save on construction costs is to use drywall for interior walls instead of staking concrete blocks on top of each other Van Hook said. FCS is looking at impact security Sheetrock.
“The really good thing about this is it lets our construction company build wall sections in a warehouse somewhere and ship them to us and stand them up and glue them together and be done with the walls,” he said.
This would not only save on cost but will cut down on the schedule of the school. It could potentially make a difference of a couple of months as well as trim wall costs back approximately 30 percent, he said.
Demolition of Pepperell Middle is scheduled for the beginning of June and crews will work to prepare the construction site for when the board’s request to begin building is approved later this year.