In an interview last November with Palette<\/em>, Ms. Helen Haney, AJA CFO, predicted that issues with the High School HVAC system would be resolved \u201cwithin the next two weeks.\u201d Now a year later, with temperatures reaching above 80 degrees in parts of the 400s Hallway, it has become clear that these issues require more time than predicted. Throughout the past year, AJA\u2019s facility team engaged in a constant push-and-pull battle with the High School\u2019s HVAC unit as they worked to repair it, in Ms. Haney\u2019s words, \u201conce and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the timeline for repairing the HVAC has lasted longer than expected, Ms. Haney\u2019s understanding of the faults with the system remain consistent. Just as she explained last year, Ms. Haney still believes that miscommunication between a large HVAC unit that rests on the roof of the 400s hallway and thermostats downstairs causes the overarching issue. The thermostats report an inaccurate temperature to the unit, and it heats or cools the hallway when it should not. Additionally, the people who constructed the High School installed the duct work running throughout the 400s improperly, so the air blown down the hallway does not optimally flow into some classrooms. Considering both of these issues, the facilities team last year looked into upgrading the HVAC unit above the hallway and potentially redoing parts of the duct work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This process, however, took longer than expected. Although now part of the High School, the unit above the 400s hallways actually belonged to the older part of the AJA campus prior to the addition of the High School wing, making it approximately 30 years old. According to Ms. Haney, the parts needed to repair the system are \u201cno longer existent,\u201d so the HVAC unit requires an \u201cupgrade\u2026 to a whole new system.\u201d Supply chain shortages caused by COVID-19, however, extended the timeframe for this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While waiting for the pieces of this new unit to arrive, teachers in the 400s hallway felt the effects of the issues with the HVAC unit. For instance, math teacher Mr. Bill Feinberg reported that his classroom \u201cunfortunately got to an incredibly uncomfortable 82 degrees.\u201d He recalled, \u201cI was ready to pass out.\u201d Dean of Students and Hebrew Teacher Moreh Danny Nurafshan agreed, stating that the \u201cscorching heat\u201d in his room earlier in the year \u201cwas not conducive to learning.\u201d To combat the heat, Moreh Danny attempted to take his classes outside, but he struggled to maintain the classroom decorum in an informal outdoor setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the past year, several teachers, including Mr. Feinberg, submitted tickets regarding the high temperatures in the 400s hallway. However, Ms. Haney explained that because the facilities team already understands the complex issues with the HVAC system, \u201cthere’s not that much that we [can] do other than fix things on the ground.\u201d Ms. Haney and the AJA facilities team conducted several walk-throughs down the hallway to assess the need for fans and portable units and respond accordingly. Ms. Haney purchased three stand-up fans for each classroom along the hallway and installed \u201cportable air conditioning units for a couple of the classrooms that tended to get more hot than others.\u201d Yet, for Mr. Feinberg, \u201ctwo big fans\u2026 in both corners of the room\u201d still proved unsuccessful at combating the heat because \u201call it really did was blow hot air around the room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast to the warm temperatures of the 400s hallway, the chemistry and biology labs upstairs reach cooler temperatures. Ms. Haney acknowledged feedback she heard from students who shifted between \u201creally, really freezing\u201d temperatures upstairs to \u201creally, really hot\u201d classrooms across the 400s hallway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although most of the classrooms upstairs drop to cold temperatures, Mrs. Hana Hecht\u2019s Room 525 experiences warm temperatures, as it did last year. Mrs. Hecht attested that her room frequently climbs to \u201c77 degrees, and when the heat kicks on, well, it kicks on.\u201d She lamented, \u201cI\u2019m dying\u2026 it\u2019s very hard to teach in such heat.\u201d Contrastingly, Room 524 next door, where Dr. Corrie Stephenson and Mrs. Catherine Brand teach, drops to cool temperatures. For instance, one morning, Dr. Stephenson recounted that the room reached 49 degrees. \u201cI don\u2019t complain when it\u2019s between 60 and 70,\u201d she reasoned, \u201cbut 49\u2019s a bit too cold.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Noting complaints from students and teachers regarding the science labs, Ms. Haney clarified that the thermostat controls for these rooms reside in the HS Business office, so \u201cif the teachers are ever too cool or thermostats need to be adjusted in any way, the teachers just need to email our Director of Facilities Mr. Steven Anderson or put in a maintenance request.\u201d However, Dr. Stephenson and Mrs. Brand posited that adjusting the thermostat is not enough to adjust the temperatures in their classroom. Mrs. Brand explained that even when the facilities team sets the temperature higher in her classroom, it does not reach the set threshold in reality. The opposite effect occurs in Mrs. Hecht\u2019s room. Dr. Stephenson recalled one occasion when \u201cthe heat was still blasting\u201d past 76 degrees in Mrs. Hecht\u2019s room \u201ceven though her temperature was set to 69.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n “….the reason for temperature fluctuations upstairs remains a mystery…”<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Dr. Stephenson believes this phenomenon results from the thermostats measuring the temperatures in Rooms 524 and 525 incorrectly. Although last year Dr. Stephenson was \u201cnot entirely sure [of] what [was] causing the problem,\u201d she and Mrs. Brand have since understood from HVAC companies that have worked on the High School\u2019s system that \u201cthe sensor in Mrs. Hecht\u2019s room that talks to the thermostat downstairs is too close\u201d to their own room, 524. This causes \u201cthe heat in [Mrs. Hecht\u2019s] room to kick on and overheat\u201d due to reading the temperature from the cooler room next door. Mrs. Brand has taught in Room 524 since its addition to the High School building and heard from HVAC companies that the system\u2019s faults trace back to the construction of the High School wing in that \u201cthe sensors weren\u2019t where they were supposed to be according to the building plans.\u201d However, the incorrect placement of the sensors remains a theory; according to Mrs. Brand, \u201cthe long and the short of it is that we don\u2019t actually know what causes it, [but] I strongly suspect that mistakes were made with the initial installation of the HVAC system in the new construction, [and they] have just pervaded.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the reason for temperature fluctuations upstairs remains a mystery, Ms. Haney expressed prospects of resolving the problem in the 400s hallway downstairs. She explained that AJA worked with an HVAC company to place an order for the parts to replace the unit above the 400s hallway. Around Thanksgiving, Ms. Haney predicts that the final parts of the unit will arrive after extended delays, and the HVAC company will finally install the unit on the roof with a crane, work to repair the duct work, and upgrade the HVAC system throughout the hallway as needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the issues with the HVAC have persisted months into the school year, the installation of a new unit in the 400s hallway might mean the end of a long battle with the hallway\u2019s HVAC system. In the science labs upstairs, however, the fluctuations in temperature remain a mystery that has yet to be solved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Update on AJA\u2019s High School HVAC System<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":2197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","entry","rows"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/graphic-oem-parts.png?fit=430%2C264&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2198,"href":"https:\/\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions\/2198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palette.atljewishacademy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}