Faulty systems disrupt classes

Class schedules were disrupted Feb. 16 in the Center for Performing Arts and Stranahan Hall due to heating system-related issues.

The University of Toledo sent out emails that morning to students, announcing that the CPA would be closed due to a heating issue.

Associate Vice President of Facilities and Construction Jason Toth said the closing of the CPA was due to a failure in the mechanical system and the heat exchanger, not a result of weather.

“This wasn’t a frozen issue,” Toth said, “this was just a failure of an older piece of equipment in the facility.”

Toth said UT hired an independent time and materials contractor to fix the broken equipment and that the facility is “fully operational.”

“The heat exchanger was repaired and heat was restored to the building as of 4 o’clock yesterday,” Toth said. “We were working through last night and today to refill the system and bleed the lines to get heat fully dispersed through the building, but in these temperatures it takes a great deal of time to heat the entire building back up.”

Toth said UT is using independent, temporary heaters throughout the CPA to assist with heating the building, but that it will most likely be another day before heat is fully restored to the CPA.

“It was unexpected,” he said, “We have many systems throughout the campus, through all of our campuses that are very old; the buildings are aged, with an aged infrastructure, so it was an unexpected expense.”

Toth said that although the cost of repairs is unknown at this time, he is not expecting a large cost to the repairs.

On the same day classes were cancelled in the CPA, students and faculty in Stranahan Hall left the building due to a fire alarm set off by a faulty steam relief valve.

“The steam relief valve of the steam heating system, failed to the open position, which allowed steam to fill the mechanical room which then entered the air handling unit and then went out into the building and sounded the fire alarm in the building,” Toth said.

The building was cleared by the Toledo Fire Department and the steam release valve was reset that same day, according to Toth.

He said the relief valves are designed to open to release excess pressure of the steam heating units in the building, and then to return to a closed position.

“This is just a situation where the relief valve stuck in the open position,” Toth said. “It was releasing steam into the building, and into the mechanical room of the building, which got pulled into the air handling system and that was what created the smoke alarm to go off in the building and sounded the fire alarm system. So it was just a matter of replacing that relief valve that went bad.”