IPO Successfully Campaigns Groveport Schools To Use Mechanical Insulation

Since September 2014, the Insulation Professions of Ohio has been on a campaign to get the new Groveport High School construction to include mechanical insulation. The project just completed the bidding process. There were 3 contractors who submitted bids for the work. The Groveport board to awarded the bid to the Pedersen Insulation Company, one of Insulation Professions of Ohio’s primary contractors.

The mechanical insulation campaign includes many marketing items, such as a video describing the benefits that mechanical insulation can bring to a school district and its buildings, as well as a comprehensive binder containing detailed information on mechanical insulation. The binder and supporting documentation were distributed to key decision makers during a presentation made at a design team meeting.

Insulation Professions of Ohio were recently informed that mechanical insulation will be included in the construction project. Not only will the students, teachers and administrators be safer as a long term benefit of the mechanical insulation in the school, they will also be greener by receiving the increased energy saving that mechanical insulation affords. The contract has detailed that the Mechanical Insulation must be installed by workers that have completed a 4-year apprenticeship program. The knowledge, safety and expertise that the educated workers have will be beneficial to the installation of the mechanical insulation at Groveport.

All of the success with the Groveport School District has helped the Insulation Professions of Ohio to review and research other area schools. The Johnstown-Monroe school district, located northeast of Columbus, is another school district that will be looking at completing construction in the coming months. With phase one of the renovations on the Johnstown-Monroe High School recently completed; phase two work will include plumbing, sewer, electrical, HVAC and lighting. The project will total $4.8 million dollars and is currently on time and under budget.

The benefits of mechanical insulation can also be applied to the Johnstown-Monroe school district as they look to build a new elementary school. The elementary school was approved in February by the board for a $16.36 million budget, with the school forecasted to be open and functioning for the 2017-2018 school year.  With the mechanical insulation promotion marketing pieces, the video, reference documents and supporting material, already established, the Insulation Professions of Ohio will be pushing to ensure that the Johnstown-Monroe school district buildings be completed with the safety and benefits that come with mechanical insulation.

Part II: Insulation Professionals of Ohio Target School Construction Projects

‘The high hopes of the school district for this new construction project and our experience of the deterioration of mechanical systems in the old high school motivated us to do something to ensure quality mechanical insulation work would be done on the new high school,’ Scott Emrich with Insulation Professionals of Ohio said.

At first Dan Poteet, Manager of Insulation Professionals of Ohio, was adamant about securing the work at Groveport because he was worried that the design team would intentionally value engineer mechanical insulation out of the construction plans, but as the project progressed he began to realize that as the decision makers began to more thoroughly understand the value and benefits of mechanical insulation they were less apt to cut it from the project.

‘For a while we thought decision makers on major construction projects like this were deliberately value engineering mechanical insulation out of their construction budget, but the more we looked into to it, the more we realized that the exclusion of mechanical insulation from major construction projects was mostly due to end users’ ignorance of its existence and the benefits it could bring. It was more misunderstanding then malice,’ said Poteet.

The desire to help a local school district while organizing work were not the only motivation behind the mechanical insulation education campaign, Poteet and Emrich saw this as an opportunity to promote the entire industry more generally.

‘When Scott told me about what was going on in Groveport my wheels started turning. At first we just thought of it as a good opportunity to help a local school district and organize work, but after talking about it for a while, we started to think bigger and realized that this was a great opportunity to promote mechanical insulation and educate people about its existence and benefits on a larger scale,’ said Dan Poteet.

While Emrich and Poteet appreciated the Groveport opportunity as organizers and managers, they also saw the opportunity from a broader industry perspective.

‘We realized that if we only used Groveport to benefit our Local and not the entire industry, we would be wasting a golden opportunity,’ said Poteet.

IPO saw the Groveport school project as more than just a single large scale project that would keep their workforce busy, they saw it as an opportunity to make the value and benefits of mechanical insulation visible to other potential end users who did not know about its value and were therefore not planning to include it in the design of their construction projects.

‘Basically, we thought the Groveport Madison high school build would be a great test case for a mechanical insulation education campaign that we could take other places as well. We thought that if we could get in early, during the planning and design stages, we would be able to educate the school board and design teams about what mechanical insulation is, and all the ways their school building and district could benefit from it,’ said organizer Scott Emrich.

The response to the campaign continues to be favorable, and the design team has given provisional feedback indicating that they will implement mechanical insulation in the design and construction of the school.

Insulation Professionals of Ohio Support Groveport Madison Schools and Athletics

In an ongoing effort to show support for the Groveport Madison school district, the Insulation Professionals of Ohio designed and hung a banner on the high school football field fence.

groveport-football-picture

Over the last year, the Insulation Professionals of Ohio (IPO) have been working with members of the Groveport Madison school board to ensure that construction of the new Groveport Madison high school is properly mechanically insulated as well as safely firestopped.

IPO hopes that the banner shows the school board and teachers, as well as the district’s students and their parents how much IPO cares about the health and safety of the school district’s facilities, administration, teachers, and students.

Groveport Madison Schools and Athletics

Groveport Madison Schools and Athletics

IPO is proud to sponsor Groveport Madison schools and athletics, and looks forward to continuing what is already a strong relationship.