Gailyn Messersmith (right) opens the door to the fire chamber in the boiler heating Messersmith's facility in Bark River. School board members Rick Litzner (left) and Mike Grogan (foreground) look on with Garry Guard, who works as a salesman for Messersmith. St. Ignace Schools Superintendent Mike Springsteen said he is encouraged about a project to convert the district to a wood-fired boiler aimed at reducing heating costs at the schools, following a trip with two school board members, Mike Grogan and Rick Litzner, to see them in operation at western Upper Peninsula schools, and to tour the factory. They embarked Thursday, October 8. The St. Ignace News tagged along on the fact-finding trip.

The district received a feasibility study from Integrated Designs of Marquette in August, which concluded that switching to a wood chip boiler heating system would save $5,378 a year in heating costs, but the initial cost of implementing such a system would be $781,000.

At the heating plant used by Messersmith in Bark River both as an example and to heat the company's business offices and warehouses, an auger pulls wood chips out of the mountain of them in the supply tank onto the conveyer belt that carries them into the boiler. If constructed, a very similar system would be used in St. Ignace schools to supplement heat from natural gas boilers. Hoping to gain more insight into the success of woody biomass heating, the group visited schools with an older version of the system at North Dickinson County Schools in Felch and North Central Area Schools in Powers, as well as the Messersmith manufacturing plant in Bark River, where these types of systems are designed and fabricated.

At the onset of the trip, Mr. Springsteen and both school board members said their goal was to discover any maintenance problems some of the older systems experience, see if the other schools were happy with the systems and service provided by Messersmith, and explore whether the concept would work in St. Ignace and, if so, how it could be funded.

At right: St. Ignace school representatives talk with management from Messersmith about the proposed facility in St. Ignace while watching the company's heating facility in Bark River operate. Behind the containment wall, piles of wood chips are delivered by semi-truck, and the auger runs along the floor, pulling chips as needed onto the conveyer belt and into the wood-fired boiler. "I thought it went very well," Mr. Springsteen said of the trip. "I was very impressed by Messersmith; it seems like the guy really has a lot invested in making these systems work."

The man behind the technology is former metal worker Gailyn Messersmith, who has been perfecting his design for wood chip feeding and heating systems for 27 years. Mr. Messersmith has installed these systems in 52 schools in eight states, and even more at other businesses and organizations. He has 50 heating units running in New England alone.

North Central High School and Junior High has been using a wood chip boiler to heat the school since 1982, providing about 85% of its heat while natural gas provides the remaining 15%. The school recently had an energy audit, Superintendent Andrew Hongisto said, and auditors told them that even with the much higher percentage of heat coming from the wood boiler, they spent more money on natural gas than on wood chips.

Mr. Hongisto said school leaders expected the high school and junior high building to be their least efficient facility because of its age, but the audit said it was the most efficient, owing to the money the wood system saved the district.

The district orders chips from local suppliers as needed until low temperatures require it to schedule regular deliveries. The district is paying between $35 and $40 a ton for wood chips.

The only problem voiced by school officials was that wood chips will occasionally freeze together and jam up the system that feeds fuel to the boiler. This problem has been alleviated by not loading the wood chip holding area so full and switching to a different design for the auger that pulls wood chips out of the bin.

Mr. Litzner commented that having no insulation on the roof of their storage bin could be another factor that would cause chips to freeze together.

Messersmith installed a newer version of the wood heating system at North Dickinson Area Schools in 1991. The boiler there heats the 325- student building and bus garages.

Superintendent Claude Siders said his district receives three weekly deliveries of wood chips from a local supplier throughout the winter months and as needed before and after that. The district is paying $37.50 per ton for the chips, and Mr. Siders said it is likely saving $72,000 or more a year by using the wood boiler system.

North Dickinson also receives most of its heat from the Mess- 0ersmith system, but spends $10,000 yearly on gas and only $4,000 on wood chips. School officials recommended the system and said their experience with Messersmith has been very positive.

One caution from maintenance employee Matt Talon is that whoever operates the system needs to be properly trained.

The newer heating systems are highly automated, with electronic controls and even the ability for Messersmith to help troubleshoot controls from its office in Bark River.

Mr. Messersmith said he encourages maintenance personnel to spend time with him when he does the initial system set-up so he can properly train them on the system.

While all three St. Ignace school officials returned from their trip to the western Upper Peninsula with a positive outlook on the suggested change, some questions still remain before any action is recommended to the St. Ignace school board.

The main concerns, school officials said, is making sure a wood chip supplier is available nearby at reasonable prices. Messersmith recommended checking with timber suppliers in Newberry, but the school has not yet contacted any of these suppliers.

The other big question for St. Ignace is how to fund such a large capital expense. Grants, low-interest loans, and a district-wide tax levy are a few of the options the school system has to foot the bill.

According to the feasibility study, the savings will add up to equal the initial investment after 10.5 years, after which the district should begin realizing the savings the new system would bring. The study estimates an annual need for 1,741 tons of wood chips from a local supplier.

The study recommends a 60-foot by 24-foot building that would be constructed between the St. Ignace Middle School and High School buildings. From there, hot water lines would carry heat to the four boiler rooms spread out in the three school buildings, where they would tie into the existing heater system.