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Gacko Municipal Building

The municipal administration building and the Cultural Center building with a multifunctional hall had central heating installed exactly 50 years ago. Coal was exclusively used as a fuel for heating, burned in sectional cast iron boilers.

For most rooms, saturated steam was used as a heat transfer medium, which transferred heat to the surrounding air in radiators and returned in the form of condensate to the boiler.

For heating and ventilation of the multifunctional hall, air conditioning chambers and ductwork were installed. Unfortunately, contrary to all modern professional rules and fire protection regulations, the air conditioning chambers were located in a common space in the boiler room and coal storage, from where the air ducts entered the hall directly. No one among the municipality employees remembers that the system with air conditioning chambers for heating and ventilation of the hall was in operation. For decades, the space in the hall has been trying to be heated in various alternative ways (heaters, radiators). Unfortunately, unsuccessfully. The almost unbearable conditions for the comfort of people in the winter period due to the low internal temperature were further disturbed by an unpleasant smell coming from the boiler room through air ducts. Given the burning of coal in old boilers, there was also a threat of the penetration of incomplete combustion products into the hall and direct endangerment of people's safety.

In recent years, due to the aging of the entire equipment, radiator heating in offices was insufficient, so most of these rooms were heated by electric heaters. Before the last heating season, due to the renovation works in one of the business premises on the ground floor of the building, only a few rooms had the possibility of heating in the original way.

After the public procurement tender for the design and execution of a complete heating system reconstruction, by the "turnkey" system, the contract was concluded with the most favorable contractor, the company "Grijanjeinvest" Pale.

After the execution project was made and approval was obtained from the representatives of the municipality, several months of work began, which were successfully completed by a trial run a few days ago.

During the execution, more than 10 tons of worn-out material were dismantled and removed from the building, and completely new copper and steel pipeline installations, new radiators, equipment in the boiler room (circulation pumps, valves, expansion vessels, heat accumulators), electrical switchboards, and measuring equipment were installed.


Detail from the boiler room during the dismantling of old, worn-out equipment


Detail from the Assembly Hall during the dismantling of old, worn-out equipment

It is planned to use primarily wood logs as fuel for boilers, and occasionally coal, which will significantly reduce pollution in the city center and emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere. Instead of using steam, which has long been abandoned in heating systems as unhygienic and energetically inefficient, the new heating system uses hot water with a temperature regime of 80/60°C in winter project conditions. This will provide better thermal comfort in all rooms and reduce primary energy consumption (there will no longer be a need for individual electric heating devices).

Detail from the Assembly Hall after the reconstruction of the heating system

New hot water distributor and collector with circulation pumps


New solid fuel boilers with other thermotechnical equipment

 

The old channels that led from the boiler room into the hall were dismantled, and the penetrations where the channels passed through the intermediate structure between the boiler room and the hall were closed off.

Heating and ventilation for the multifunctional hall were effectively resolved through two air systems symmetrically positioned in the corners of the stage, which supply the prepared air (filtered and heated) into the hall through nozzles. The exhaust air is extracted through channels and grates placed in the central part of the stage, behind the cinema screen, achieving a satisfactory flow pattern in the space.

 


Multifunctional hall with nozzles for the insertion of warm air

 

In addition to work on mechanical and thermotechnical installations, construction work was carried out on the adaptation of the boiler room and repair of walls behind dismantled radiators. This work was carried out by "Gradnja" from Gacko, as a subcontractor of "Grijanjeinvest".

The "4ing" company from Sarajevo, as a subcontractor of "Grijanjeinvest", performed the development of schemes for new electrical switchboards in the boiler room and two systems of air heating and ventilation for the hall, along with cabling of complete thermotechnical equipment and delivery and installation of equipment for backup power supply in the boiler room.

The complete installed equipment is of excellent quality, from renowned manufacturers in this field. With appropriate maintenance, it should serve for decades.