NORWOOD -- Workers took advantage of the recent holidays and empty buildings to pick up the pace of replacing the heating system as part of Norwood-Norfolk Central School's $13.5 million capital project.

The main focus of the two-year project has been replacing the half-century old heating system. It was a priority because it was becoming difficult to control the temperature in some of the classrooms.

A lot of the work on that has been done in the last couple of weeks while the students were at home, including [img_assist|nid=188483|title=Ed Penny, Norwood-Norfolk night supervisor, adjusts one of the three new boilers.|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=250|height=274]installation of heating units in the elementary and middle schools and installation of new electrical panels.

Some of the work was outside in sub-zero temperatures.

Ed Penny, Norwood-Norfolk night supervisor, said of Doug Crandall and Jon Bishop, of Murnane Associates of Plattsburgh, “These two are very hard workers. They were working outside last week at night with wind chills of –20 degrees.”

The contractors include S&L Electric of Colton, Burns Brothers Contracting of Potsdam, New Century Electric of Clayton, Murnane Building Contractors of Plattsburgh, and Trane Heating and Cooling.

The project was approved by voters in 2014.

Some of the work was held up, due to delays in approvals from the state Education Department and lining up contractors who have been busy with other work, according to NNCS Superintendent Jamie Cruikshank.

The whole job is now due to be completed this coming summer.

The capital project also included making the parking lot safer by separating bus traffic from public vehicles.[img_assist|nid=188487|title=Jim Ward, Burns Brothers of Potsdam, installs a heater in an elementary classroom.|desc=|link=none|align=middle|width=470|height=529]