Boiling Point
The Red Oak School District has made strides in rectifying heating problems which plagued the district in December.
Boiler problems resulted in closures at both the high school and Inman Primary due to frigid temperatures in the classrooms. Superintendent Tom Messinger and lead maintenance technician Adam Wenberg said that recent and upcoming fixes will prevent further weather closures.
“The issue at the high school was leftover bugs from the installation of the new boilers,” Messinger said. The contractor had forgotten two dip switch settings on one of the boilers. When we got below freezing, it shut both boilers down because the system got confused. That issue has been repaired.
“The Inman Primary issue will be repaired this week. The repair involves extending the chimneys three more feet.
“The exaust pipe was the same height as the air intake, and the vapors were sucked into the intake and there’s a fine mesh screen in there that ices up when it’s cold outside; it shut down that boiler,” Messinger said.
Another precaution being taken is the installation of temperature sensors throughout the district that will be an early warning if there are any issues.
“We can receive email alerts and text messages at the same time if the buildings drop below a certain temperature so we can make any repairs immediately rather than finding out the buildings are chilled down to 40 degrees or below when we walk in the next morning,” Wenberg said.
Work is being done to get the building utilities back to a more automated system, which will be less pressure on the staff.
“We’re taking care of things quicker and setting up more of a routine. We’ve installed a new filter system in the high school for cleaning the air filters that will prolong their life and make them more efficient, and air quality will improve. We weren’t able to do a lot of preventative maintenance in the past, but now we’re getting that, and getting routine maintenance set-up as well. We’ve had a lot of heating and cooling problems this year and last year, and we’re finally getting on top of it,” commented Messinger.
Wenberg said work has also been done to the cooling systems, and bring in fresh air in anticipation of warm summer months. Messinger is pleased that these maintenance issues are being resolved, as it will help the district shift money into other areas.
“Now that we’re getting repairs made and setting up routine maintenance, we can use the voter-approved PPEL for some other big equipment purchases or upgrades that are needed throughout the district. If you’re always paying for fixes to what you have, you can’t move forward. So while we’ve had some problems, they’ve been identified and resolved and we can keep them from being an issue in the future by setting up these routine maintenance schedules,” commented Messinger.