By Jennifer Giri and Claire Paterson
What caused the increase in classroom temperature to occur in the beginning of the year? To get to the bottom of it, Erik Johnson, the head custodian was willing to explain to The Buzz what happened.
“We have two towers. The one that’s over there controls that whole F-wing side of the building. And that basically provides the cool water that runs into the system…We had a major catastrophe. The main shaft that runs the whole thing just ripped through and broke the whole machinery down.”
When asked when this happened he replied,“I believe it was the first day of school.”
The tower that caused the air conditioning to malfunction sits right outside the building near the C parking lot. Photo credit: Claire Paterson.
The temperature in the building was immediately noticed as students fled into the high school on the first day this August.
There is a limited amount of windows available for faculty to open on those first humid weeks in August and early September. On top of this, the ventilation for the air conditioning seemed to have some problems. Some classrooms were cool, and others, such as the F-wing science rooms, were almost unbearably hot, according to members of the student body. When asked about this, Ellery Riccio stated, “I’m freezing in one classroom and sweating in another.”
Former Class of 2015 president MaryColleen Whitney tells of her experiences in relation to the air conditioning issues in the school. “I have asthma so it’s hard for me to breathe already. Asthma is when your airways are already restricted, so if particles that are floating in the air get in my airways, I really can’t breathe,” she said. “So I would appreciate not-musty air. [When the air conditioning wasn’t working] I would take my inhaler after gym, before I went into the F-wing because it was really hot.”
The shaft in the tower that tore up the entire machinery. Photo credit: Claire Paterson.
Assistant Principal Mr. Briganti stated that he had no complaints from the student body concerning the air quality. He explained the varying temperatures, saying that the school is divided up into zones that are heated and cooled separately, and that some of these zones are surprising: rooms next to each other are sometimes in different zones.
The reason why is that “there’s individual units for every room”, causing a change in degrees from classroom to classroom. This is all managed on a computer, which can be monitored and adjusted.
To fix this problem, Mr. Johnson said he “had to order all new parts, we had to have it all shipped to us which took I think a week to go”.
As for expenses, Johnson said,“any time something like that breaks down its very expensive, we have contingency so it really didn’t have anything with the budget”.
The problem has been resolved, and according to Mr. Johnson, most likely won’t happen again in the near future.
What do you think about the air quality and temperature in the building? Let us know in the comments or via Twitter @BranfordBuzz.
