The Department of Energy Efficiency of Mykolaiv answered when they will complete the repair of 45 and 42 schools: «We can't afford it now»

The Department of Energy Efficiency of Mykolaiv City Council is currently unable to complete the renovation of schools №45 and №42, as this requires first making adjustments to their projects.

The director of the energy efficiency department, Alla Lutska, announced this during the meeting of the budget commission of the city council on January 17, NikVesti writes.

Deputy Maksym Kovalenko asked questions about the completion of school repairs, the completion of which has been 80% for a long time.

«During this time, schools are being destroyed. The slopes are not made, moisture gets there. Initiative deputies raised this issue as early as 2021. The contractor came out and did one wall of the dining room that didn't need to be done. There has been no progress in these schools since then,» he said.

Alla Lutska reported that currently school repair projects need to be adjusted, but the department does not have funds for these needs.

«When I took office in 2022, I studied this issue. First, for 2022, the contracts with the contractor were terminated. And secondly, all projects are subject to adjustment over time. To date, as well as last year, we have not been able to adjust these projects because we clearly understood that we will not be able to complete these objects. Therefore, this question is open now. If there is additional funding. We have 11 such objects — they are all under control. But now we cannot afford to adjust these projects,» said the director of the department.

At the same time, she added that if an investor appears who is ready to complete the repairs, the department is ready to «quickly make adjustments» within three months.

Why didn't the renovations of 42 and 45 schools have been completed?

Back in 2015, the city council decided to install an autonomous boiler room in school № 45, since the school is cold in winter. The project cost of the works at that time was estimated at 1 million 549 thousand hryvnias. The client was the Department of Capital Construction of the City Council, and the contractor was the company Pivdenbud Mykolaiv LTD. In 2016-2017, the school's heating system was completely replaced: heating devices, risers, pipes, and a new heating unit was installed.

However, it was cold at school, as before. It turned out that 30-40% of the heat went outside. In 2018, a decision was made to carry out thermal rehabilitation of the school building within the framework of the «Warm Mykolaiv» program: insulation of walls, windows, and so on. The customer of the works was the Department of Energy Efficiency, the contractor of Pivden-Budservice LLC.

However, in January 2021, it became known that the director of general education school №45 in Mykolaiv, Oleksii Tselishchev , is asking city council members to allocate 10 million hryvnias for the completion of major renovations that have been going on for 5 years within a year.

Problems with repair work also arose in city school №42. In September 2020, NikVesti wrote that the Department of Energy Efficiency of the Mykolaiv City Council, on the second attempt, found a contractor who will energy-modernize school №42 for 35.6 million hryvnias.

A year later, the director of the Mykolaiv school №42, Olena Karpenko, complained about poor-quality work on thermal sanitation of the building of the educational institution. According to the director of the school, the windows in the building of the educational institution are leaking, window sills remain unfastened, and rubber bands intended for their insulation are falling out of the windows, damaging the panes.

Later it became known that the work there was started in 2019 and only 15% was completed. In 2020–2021, thermosanitation was not continued. During this time, three contractors changed, and what had already been done began to collapse. At the same time, 4.9 million hryvnias were spent on repairs out of 29 million hryvnias planned for the project.

On November 28, 2021, the Department of Energy of Mykolaiv reported that the employees of the contracting organization began work on eliminating the shortcomings of Mykolaiv School №42, which arose due to unfinished work on thermal sanitation. The work started was planned to be completed by the end of 2021.