Already planning a guaranteed energy savings, or ESCO, project at its middle school, Lehighton Area School District may look to do the same with renovations at its high school.

On a unanimous vote during Monday night's meeting, the school board voted to get a cost for a detailed energy audit at the high school.The audit would be necessary to determine how much guaranteed savings Lehighton would realize at the 148,000-square-foot building."At this point, we're just getting a cost," Cleaver said. "Then the board will decide whether they want to go ahead with the audit or not."Though the estimated $10.9 million middle school project has yet to go to bid, the district has made its intentions clear to use Maryland-Pennsylvania Trane as the mechanical prime contractor.Board members William Hill and Rocky Ahner questioned why the high school wasn't also planned as an ESCO project."When we started talking about the middle school, the high school wasn't a project like you have on your radar screen right now," said John Linn, a representative for Trane.Both projects involve complete rehabilitation of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in the respective buildings.District officials said if the board doesn't move forward with an ESCO project at the high school, the plan is still to use Trane's HVAC equipment in the building and a proposed elementary center."It allows for consistency across all of our buildings and makes it a lot easier on our maintenance team," Cleaver said.With the ESCO project at the middle school, Trane is responsible for any work orders during installation of the HVAC system."If you don't do an ESCO project, you're paying for all of the change orders, and that can get expensive," Hill said. "I've never seen a project that didn't have change orders."Energy savings are guaranteed up to 20 years with ESCO. Parts and labor warranty for the HVAC system would be five years for the Trane equipment.The board on Monday night approved submitting PlanCon Part F, the section of the Pennsylvania Department of Education's reimbursement process dealing with construction documents.That, along with earlier parts in the process, may need to be resubmitted if the high school becomes an ESCO project."We're quickly coming up to a crossroads on whether you do an ESCO project at the high school or not," said Linn. "It dictates our approach and how bid documents are set up."Linn said he would have a cost for the detailed energy audit at the high school by the end of the week.The board could then make a decision at its May 11 workshop meeting. The cost is largely dependent on the size of the building.The audit at the middle school cost $36,000 at the smaller, 120,000-square-foot building.