The Washington County Board of Supervisors approved just over $14,000 in change orders for the County Courthouse construction project at their weekly meeting on Tuesday. 

Supervisor Marcus Fedler committee chair for this project explained the need for one of the change orders, “The basement in general, even with air conditioning, has always been somewhat humid, and with the addition of all of the new offices down there. The concern is that the air conditioners won’t be able to keep up more or less. We kind of had that problem over in public health and then in this building too when they first started and the humidity was well over one hundred percent outside and raining. Basically what this does is it adds dehumidifiers to the system that the design team created. When we first looked at the price we thought it was a little high. We went over the details of what it would entail I think long-term. We know it’s $12,000, I think overall it would be a benefit to the county to help keep moisture out of the basement.” 

The new dehumidifiers and installation cost is $12,196.55. The other change order was for wiring in a storage room in the amount of $1,819.79. Originally the courthouse remodel was tentatively set to be completed in early September, with these changes, the completion date will be closer to October 1st.