Dear Nanette:

We passed along your question to Operations Chief Art Cavazos.  Here is his reply:

“The District Operations Division staff is fully committed to making sure that our buildings are conducive to learning.  We apologize if this has not always been the case at your school.  Your school’s system was upgraded, and issues regarding the controls for the system do exist. 

“Since the District’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are diverse and unique, we looked at the specifics of the building site in which your room is located to answer your question.  Please keep in mind that the HVAC systems serving our buildings are complex and unlike systems that serve single zone buildings such as homes. 

“The warm air to heat your room is provided by a boiler that serves many zones and must condition air to meet varying needs.  Since these areas are used in various ways and are occupied by varying sized groups across the different times of the day, they must be managed by central controls and not just thermostats.  Relay contacts are used to start and stop equipment, and signals are used to control the movement of the hot water and steam, which flow through control devices such as valves.  Air handlers then blow air heated by the steam produced by the boiler into your room.  Dampers and motors then control the amount of air actually blowing into each area/room. The controls are what dictate the position of the dampers and valves and determine which fans, pumps and chillers run and at what speed or capacity.  The program uses time schedules, set points, controllers, logic, timers, trend logs and alarms that all assist in ensuring that units are operating correctly.  It is these controls that are “controlled by downtown” and that have not been working properly in your school.  Because the controls do not work properly, they were operated manually directly at your campus.  Thus, on the day you were getting cold air blowing in your room, the boiler had manually been turned off at your campus, but the air handlers blowing air into your room were not, a mistake that would not occur if the controls were working properly. 

“The cold air that was coming into your room was outside air that the system’s air handlers would normally be mixing with the conditioned warm air.  The reason outside air is mixed with the conditioned air is to assure that the occupants of the building receive fresh outside air and not just re-circulated air.  The fresh air requirement is mandatory for all public buildings to eliminate problems that stale air creates. 

“Due to the importance of properly working HVAC systems, the District established a help desk in late November 2011.  The help desk was designed utilizing existing staff with the goal of improving response and completion time for our repairs.  Campus principals were informed of this help desk last month and encouraged to utilize it to make sure we receive fast notice of heating and cooling concerns at the campuses.  The help desk provides a contact for fast review of HVAC issues, since sometimes work order requests are submitted that are not clear as to what is actually occurring on campus or specific as to the urgency of the situation.  For example, looking at your campus, there have been three work orders submitted during the last three months (November 2011 to January 2012), and all have been closed.  However, the situation on the campus is apparently more grievous.  We hope the help desk will make it easier to report concerns.

“I do not want to fail to mention that in looking at the energy consumption of your campus for last year, only 16 schools spent less per square footage in electricity and gas.  So, congratulations to you and all the staff at your campus for being energy efficient and for all that you do for our FWISD students.”