The ceiling in the Lehighton Area Middle School auditorium will be cut out to make way for asbestos abatement and the replacement of a heating, ventilation and air conditioning system.

By a unanimous vote during Monday's building workshop, Lehighton Area School District's board voted to pay $82,000 for Sargent Enterprises to remove asbestos in the room's ceiling and walls. The board already gave the Jim Thorpe company the go-ahead to do $262,900 worth of abatement in the rest of the building."I'm just glad our school is going to asbestos free," said board member Larry Stern.The asbestos will be removed ahead of a Trane Comprehensive Solutions energy savings project that is estimated to cost around $10.7 million. The larger renovation will feature a complete overhaul of the building's HVAC system and several changes to the building's layout.According to the project timeline, asbestos removal in the auditorium would take place next summer.The other option considered by the district was scraping away the asbestos in the auditorium and possibly placing an acoustical finish on the base coat. Scraping would have cost $95,000 and an acoustical finish was projected at $189,000.Trane officials told the board it would likely have to disturb the auditorium ceiling during its work, making its removal during the asbestos work the best option.Lehighton Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver said the district is putting in a sprinkler system."When you couple that with the HVAC removal, you realize the whole ceiling is going to have to be cut. In talking to Trane we realized that while the scaffolding is up, it would be best to just remove the ceiling at that point."Board member William Hill Jr. asked if the HVAC system could be removed through the middle school's roof, which would likely be replaced during renovations."Any way you look at it, we're going to be making penetrations in the ceiling, so it seemed best to cut it out when we do the asbestos removal," Cleaver said. "That option is actually cheaper than removing asbestos via the scrape because the scrape is more labor intensive."Cleaver said an acoustical study would be completed to determine the best kind of ceiling to place in the auditorium when the mechanical work was complete.Hill agreed now was not the time to discuss that part of the project."Let's stay away from what kind of sounding material we'll put up," he said. "When we are 75 percent through the mechanical work, then we can put out the bid for what kind of ceiling we want."