Building on the cheap

The University likes to showcase their latest and greatest buildings. However, their biggest problem is that they always award building contracts to the lowest bidder. In this case the old saying "you get what you pay for" is so true.

My building will turn 16 this year. Ever since we've been here (about five years), we've had constant problems with the air handlers. Not only is it that four times a year they have to take them offline for maintanance, but in the last three months, they've randomly stopped working for a bit of time. I'm just waiting for the time when the handler goes off that blows into the hallway, and someone is working in the P3 facility at the same time.

Then there's the rule that you can't touch the thermostat. If you attempt to adjust the temperature in your room, it'll go haywire and either be too cold or too warm. Then you have to call for facilities to come and recalibrate it. There's only two facility men for all buildings north of Speedway, and they're building three big new ones (more later).

Then Thursday, our common lab got real hot. And because of the closed door policy, I wasn't allowed to prop the door open to try and get some cool air from the hall in. Yesterday the facilities guy came. Quickly figured out the valve regulating heat broke and needed to be replaced. He said that they start to go after 15 years, and this isn't the first one in this building he's had to replace. I didn't realize how hot it was in that room until after he got the valve replaced and cool air began filling the room. I grabbed a tube from the drawer in that room, and through my gloves, I could feel how warm it was (no wonder I was getting a headache after a couple hours).

Even though others use that room, I became the liason for the facilities guy. Guess I'm easy to talk to or something. He told me some great stories of the hell he gets put through from building on the cheap. He said he did his first inspection of the biggest of the new buildings and it's going to be a ventilation hell to upkeep.

I also couldn't help but notice that Monday morning there were signs at every corner of our floor warning about wet floors. I'm used to seeing these signs by the autoclave area since the machines tend to flood. But at the opposite end of the building??? I discovered the reason was because a graduate student Friday night splashed some acid on her face. Being a good safety person, she immediately ran to an emergency shower and pulled the lever. After the recommended five minutes of water rinsing, she then learned she couldn't turn OFF the water. Thus, water ran into every part of the hallways until she got an emergency shut-off to the building.

Wonder what will be next - windows falling out of the panes if you lean on them? hrmmmm