Garrison School Sues Over HVAC Project

By Holly Crocco

The Garrison Union Free School District has commenced litigation against Tetra Tech Engineers, Architects & Landscape Architects, P.C., in connection with the design of the HVAC replacement system at the district’s school building, which cost about $2.4 million.

The HVAC replacement was part of a larger project that was proposed in 2019, and Tetra Tech was retained in 2020 to do the installation.

The lawsuit alleges that the company failed to deliver a professionally engineered HVAC system that reliably provides heating and ventilation in compliance with applicable standards, and that the district has incurred and continues to incur costs associated with investigating, monitoring, correcting, and remediating the system.

Administration said they filed the action after extensive efforts to resolve the matter short of litigation failed to result in a fair and adequate solution for the district, its students, and taxpayers.

“The district’s priority remains the health, safety, and comfort of its students and staff, as well as the responsible stewardship of public resources,” administration stated in a press release last week. “Students and teachers deserve classrooms that are safe, functional, and fit for learning. The district will continue to take every appropriate measure available to it to maintain building operations while pursuing accountability against Tetra Tech through the legal process.”

According to the complaint, filed March 25, “The HVAC system designed by defendant does not reliably perform in compliance with New York heating and ventilation standards.”

Further, it states that Tetra Tech failed to use “non-representative climatological data,” or properly account for building-envelope conditions, infiltration, and reasonable safety factors. The district also accuses the company of eliminating or omitting a dedicated outdoor air or energy recovery component previously presented as part of the HVAC approach, and designing or specifying inadequate heating capacity for required outdoor air and defrost-cycle conditions.

Not only did this create a technical problem, but – according to the complaint – “it left children wearing coats in class and forced the district to divert administrative time and public resources to constant troubleshooting of a system that should have worked properly in the first place… The system, as designed, placed the district in the untenable position of having to choose between maintaining adequate heat for students and staff, or introducing the outdoor air necessary to satisfy ventilation requirements.”