WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Hartford’s town offices are moving, at least until Town Hall gets a new HVAC system.
On Dec. 4, all offices on the second and third floors of Town Hall on Bridge Street will move about three miles north to 205 Billings Farm Road. Only the Town Clerk and Parks and Recreation offices will stay in their current locations.
The two conference rooms on Town Hall’s first floor will remain available for public meetings, including Selectboard meetings.
The new offices will open to the public Monday, Dec. 7.
“We certainly recognize that this relocation represents a significant change, and it may require an adjustment period,” Town Manager Gail Ostrout said at Tuesday night’s Hartford Selectboard meeting.
Town Hall has had HVAC problems for years because of a variable refrigerant flow, or VRF, heat pump system installed in 2017, forcing the town to pay for temporary heating. Renting the space on Billings Farm Road will cost less than maintaining the temporary system, Ostrout said. Selectboard Vice Chair Erik Krauss said the rent will cost between $45,000 and $65,000 a year.
“We’ve been trying to do patchwork solutions, and ultimately we need to do a bigger overhaul,” Selectboard Chair Ida Griesemer said Wednesday.
The Selectboard has estimated that replacing Town Hall’s HVAC system will cost $1.6 million. The board voted in October to seek a bond for the cost through a USDA-backed program that offers a 2% rate over 10 years, requiring an annual payment of $176,664 from the town for the next decade. Krauss said the board “left [them]selves the opportunity” to cover pre-installation expenses, such as the temporary move, with the bond money.
The project cannot move forward until Hartford residents vote on the bond on Town Meeting Day, March 2. The offices are moving in December, though, because the heat pump likely could not keep them warm enough on a cold winter day, Krauss said.
Hartford chose the system as an environmentally sustainable option, Griesemer said.
“We were early adopters of more environmentally sustainable solutions, and the technology has advanced since then,” she said. “There were some problems with the early versions.”
Newer heat pumps perform significantly better in the cold than earlier models, according to federal research. A 2023 National Renewable Energy Laboratory study found that heat pumps historically struggled in extreme cold, but recent technological advances have greatly improved their low-temperature performance.
At Town Hall, one system serves the first floor and another serves the second and third floors. The first-floor system has worked without problems and does not need to be replaced. According to a request for proposals the town issued in May, the upper-floor system has needed major repairs since 2017, including new outdoor condensers, and the town has been told it can no longer add refrigerant to that system because it keeps leaking.
