County commissioners gave County Manager James Shubert the blessing to seek bids to re-plumb the Ware County Courthouse during a called meeting.
According to Shubert in the Wednesday, August 27 meeting, the plumbing in the original outlay of the courthouse is more than 60 years old.
“We’re having a lot of problems over there,” said Chairman Elmer Thrift.
Shubert said all the supply lines and drain lines, most of which were done with cast iron pipes, are showing years of wear and rusting.
“When the old jail was remodeled the pipe was replaced,” Shubert said. “This is the original building with original plumbing. If you see some rust on the pipes don’t rub it.
“Some of the fixtures are good (been replaced), but some are the same fixtures. We’ll definitely upgrade those so we can get replacement parts pretty easy. Is this the first time any major plumbing work has been done already” Commissioner Leonard Burse, in refering back to his comment during the passage of the FY26 millage rate, “this is something that was unforeseen right here so we’ve got to address it quickly. This is our responsibility.”
Burse’s statement during the passage of the millage rate rollback said, “We don’t know what can come up or what can happen.”
Shubert said the county has some SPLOST (Special Local Option Sales Tax) money and funds were earmarked for some building repairs.
“If we didn’t have that, we would just have to pray that it doesn’t dump on files when it (line) breaks,” said Shubert. “We would just replace a leak at a time and have four foot pieces of PVC cut into galvanized.”
Shubert said the second floor plumbing (water supplies) runs overhead. The county is required by law to keep a lot of documents in the courthouse that if they get wet, they’re going to lose the documents.
Commissioner Timmy Lucas made a motion to “seek bids to replace all galvanized water supply lines and cast iron drain lines in the Ware County Courthouse.”
Commissioner John Tindall seconded the motion.
During the discussion, Shubert said the bid proposal “will make sure everything is covered.”
“We’ll write it up and put the requirement on the people whose bidding” said the county manager. “They can come and do inspections so that when they bid it they’ll have their numbers.
“We don’t have any idea like linear feet and so forth. We’re just going to write a general proposal.”
When asked about the number of bids the county would seek, Shubert said he would take 10.
The motion passed unanimously.
