Determined to reduce annual heating costs, Rutland School District, Rutland, Vt., has installed EIFS on 80 percent of the buildings within the district over almost 20 years. In the process, they have saved $1 million.
With more than 3,000 students attending the Rutland School District, the administration decided in 1983 that it was time to retrofit district buildings. All glass walls and brick were replaced with EIFS at the middle school, two elementary schools, a behavioral-management school and an intermediate school. EIFS is an energy-efficient, synthetic, stucco-like wall cladding.
Not only did the school district install EIFS, but also 18 inches of insulation was added to all ceilings, and all incandescent lighting was replaced with fluorescent fixtures. With just these changes, the district cut oil consumption from 250,000 to about 190,000 gallons a year. The resulting savings allowed the district to totally recover its costs from the retrofit in just seven years.
In 1995, the district built a new high school and technical center and once again decided to use EIFS to provide an energy-efficient cladding for the buildings. To generate additional energy savings, the school board is contemplating 5,000-square-foot additions to each of the two elementary schools that are already clad with EIFS with more of the material.
