Tiverton School Department will sell equipment that is no longer needed

The School Department is having a yard sale Thursday morning from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the parking lot of the high school at 100 North Brayton Road.

TIVERTON — It is not a typical yard sale by any means, but what will be typical is there will likely be many early birds hoping to snag some good deals.

The School Department is having a yard sale Thursday morning from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the parking lot of the high school at 100 North Brayton Road.

It’s a sale of equipment that is no longer needed by the School Department, including a battered but functional truck with a plow, a riding mower, some gently used commercial cooking equipment, a lunch truck, a 50-year-old table saw and other old woodworking equipment.

“The bylaws say we can’t throw it away unless it’s completely broken,” said Michael Mendes, director of maintenance for the School Department.

So he collects the stuff and every few years has a yard sale to try to unload it.

One reason for this sale is not only to free up space and make a little money that will go back into a maintenance account, but to finally get rid of a leased storage unit that he said is costing the School Department $1,000 a month. It would be cheaper in the long run to buy one, he said. For years the department leased three storage units in the rear of the high school parking lot when the renovations were being done to the school a decade ago. He’s now down to one unit and looks forward to getting rid of it.

“It’s ridiculous to keep paying out,” he said.

There are two commercial convection ovens from the elementary schools that were used for just two to three years before they were sent to storage, never to return to the schools. Mendes said that was when the new Ranger School was being built and Fort Barton School was being rehabilitated. The contracts for the schools called for all new equipment, so the ovens, which can hold five sheet pans at a time, have been in storage ever since.

“New, they’d cost $5,000 to $6,000,” Mendes said. “If we get half of that” he said he will be happy.

There’s a commercial mixer and a two-bay stainless steel sink from the high school. “The state said we needed three bays,” Mendes said. “It comes with a faucet and all.”

Walking deeper into the storage container, he pointed to serving lines — serving tables used in cafeterias — that are just two to three years old, and two portable serving lines.

The White-brand riding mower is 10 years old. “We had to upgrade,” Mendes said. It wasn’t wide enough for the large lawns that have to be cut at the schools.

Two table saws, original to the woodworking shop at the high school when it opened 50 years ago, will be for sale. They still work. “They made stuff to last,” Mendes said.

A Rockwell thickness planer from one of the two woodworking shops at the middle school is 40 years old. Brand new it would cost $4,000, he said. It’s being sold because there is just one woodworking shop at the school now.

’We don’t buy new stuff” very often, he said, explaining why there are many pieces that are decades old.

The truck with plow that will be for sale is a 2006 Ford F350. It’s good for plowing small lots, Mendes said. “It’s worn. People who are mechanically inclined might want it. I’d easily take $1,000” for it.

“I’ll have people here at 7 a.m.,” Mendes said, and they will have first pick.

“It’s who shows up first, just like any yard sale,” he said.

“Whatever doesn’t sell, I’ll bring to the scrapyard.”