ARENA UPDATE – December 14, 2023
Village of Burns Lake staff are collaborating with suppliers and installers to ensure a return to regular arena and curling rink seasons as soon as possible. As a means of keeping the public informed of relevant progress, please see the updates below:
Unfortunately, the production of the new chiller unit has been delayed; as a result, the ice will not be ready for public use until February 2024.
What happened?
- November 16: Village staff received an update that the chiller was expected to ship November 29th; this would take about 2 weeks to ship to Burns Lake.
- December 4-7: Contractors arrived onsite and prepared the site for the new chiller; the old chiller was removed, and the platform and plumbing prepared for arrival of new equipment.
- December 13: Village staff received word from the manufacturer that shipping had been delayed by 1 month with expected shipping date now December 29th, 2023.
- This delay was attributed to a change in manufacturer systems that negatively affected production schedules.
- The manufacturer has communicated that they are making Burns Lake’s chiller unit a priority and will ship it on a designated truck.
What now?
- As soon as the new chiller arrives (now expected second week of January), our installers will go to work to get it installed as soon as possible; this is expected to take about 2 weeks.
- Upon successful completion and starting of the plant, Village staff will begin the process of building ice as quickly as we can.
- For user groups, this means a delay for usable arena ice until early February; curling ice will be delayed until mid-February.
- The Village plans to extend ice availability to the end of April so that users can access ice for as much time as possible.
