In addition to high temperatures, students navigating the Stacks in Alden Library have to contend with the tarps and tubes that block sections of bookshelves.
Those leak diversion kits, called PIGs, are a temporary solution for the air-handling units that have exhausted their lifespan and are in need of replacement.
Only three of the nine air-handling units residing in the eighth floor of Alden have been replaced. These three units service Archives and Special Collections, where the library houses its most sensitive documents, said Executive Director of Facilities Management Mike Gebeke.
Two units are up for replacement in Fall Semester 2013, said Robin Krivesti, Facilities and Stacks manager at Alden.
The replacement project, which took place in May 2010, cost $500,000 for all three units, while replacing the larger units, which circulate air for two floors, will cost around $250,000 per unit.
Gebeke attributes the high price of replacing the larger heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units to their removal, which is difficult when the building is in place.
“Those little ones are not anything compared to other ones (in price),” Gebeke said.
While the lifespan for an HVAC unit is 25 years, the remaining units in Alden are 43 years old. Facilities put these on deferred maintenance for almost 20 years because there were only funds available for immediate concerns, such as safety concerns or federal compliances, Scott Seaman, dean of OU Libraries said.
Facilities has a difficult time replacing individual parts on the air handling units because as they age, individual parts become more difficult to find and pay for. Three years ago, a replacement fan for one of the HVAC units cost $75,000, Gebeke said.
In the meantime, Krivesti uses PIG devices as an inexpensive way to prevent damage to library books and equipment. Krivesti said the PIG devices usually catch all leaks.
“In the past we’ve had a few books get wet, and usually those can be dried or replaced,” she said.
Seaman said that the biggest problem that Alden has experienced from old HVAC units is the uncertainty in temperature.
“There are times when you can walk into the second floor, and it’ll be 85 degrees,” he said.
When Alden was built in 1969, the designers prepared the building for around half the traffic it receives today, and there was no way to prepare for the computer technology today, Seaman said.
“I don’t think students realize what it takes to keep a building like this functioning,” he said.
dk123111@ohiou.edu
