Thank you!

I have been told that the entire campus is experiencing a water pressure problem. This is not related to other activities going on in our mechanical spaces.

Facilities are aware of the situation and is currently working to resolve the issue.

Thank you for your patience. 

All,

A tornado warning is in effect, please move to a lower level in the ILSB

I want to give everyone ample warning about the total campus high temperature hot water outage which will begin on Friday May 27th and last until June the 12th.

During this time UMBC facilities will be doing important maintenance to the central high temperature hot water lines on the campus and at the same time, inspecting out steam generator bundle coils and rerouting the steam lines into our boilers. 

Systems affected during this outage are domestic and laboratory hot water, autoclaves and vivarium humidity (Not temperatures) The vivarium staff have ample humidifiers to accommodate out facilities and depending on outside conditions, this may not be an issue. 

Please let everyone in your laboratory know to plan ahead for their autoclaving needs. Please have them sign up as group members to this site for other important announcements.

Thank you for your attention! 

Facilities tracked down the issue with the HVAC system. Turns out the Air filters into the building need to be changed on a quicker schedule that had been anticipated. The filters have all been changed and we should be running without issue for the foreseeable future. 

Thank you for your understanding. 

Twice in the last eight days we have lost HVAC supply air into the building, to compensate and balance the flow, the exhaust fans, including those for the fume hoods have reduced their flow. 

If the alarm on a flow hood is sounding or the red alarm light is on, please do not use the hood and please call me at 443-676-7211 so I can alert the facilities HVAC shop.

In the unusual circumstance that I  don't answer please feel free to call facilities at 5-2550 and explain that the ILSB is having HVAC problems. 

We are currently looking for the root cause of the outages and hope to have it resolved shortly.

Thank you

Even with the existing boiler coils only 85% +/- opened, we were immediately able to generate 65 PSI in the the first boiler this morning when we activated it. I have turned on the autoclaves on the third and fourth floors, as well as the vivarium unit. These units running have had no consequence on the pressure we're seeing in the boiler. 

Humidities in the vivarium are still slightly less than 30%, but this is most likely a Seimens control adjustment that we are currently addressing. 

Next week we will begin the clean out of the second boiler, which will probably require the entire week to accomplish. New boiler coils have been ordered and will be installed once both of the generators are operating at design pressures. 

The original coils will be sent out for professional cleaning and kept in reserve for emergency backup. This has been a huge hurdle we've gotten over and I appreciate everyone's continued patience as we've gotten through this. 

Thank you all.

Just to keep you all in the loop on the building steam generators. Facilities has cleaned a large amount of silt and debris from the first unit's boiler coils and estimate 85% + of the coils are clear. They are reassembling the boiler and will be pressure testing it this evening. If everything looks good, they will activate that unit tomorrow. Depending on the performance of the unit we will be able to decide where we go next.

Over 20 PSI - Humidity in the vivarium should range from sufficient to acceptable.

Over 40 PSI - not optimal but humidity in the vivarium and operations of the cage washer and autoclaves should be achievable

Over 60 PSI- As designed, we should be fully operational and able to disable the second generator for flushing. 

Either way, we will begin flushing the second steam generator as soon as the first unit is back in operation. 

Facilities has also ordered new boiler coils, expected to be delivered within a month. Based on the performance of the newly cleaned original coils, we may keep these in reserve for emergency swap out.

I also had the Steris rep in today to walk the site about a secondary steam source for the research and basement autoclaves. Unfortunately it was not as straightforward as I had hoped. A new 180 kVa boiler on the 3rd floor would require new piping to each unit serviced, we could not simply tap into the existing steam pipes. A second approach is to retrofit all of the autoclaves in the building with an integral steam generator independent of house steam. The downside of this is we would lose connection to house steam and our service agreement costs would rise. 

I'm going to get proposals for each scenario and I'm working with construction services to help implement whichever way we go. 

I appreciate your patience during this unforeseen, and I mean this in the most literal way, disaster, but hope to have a handle on the issues shortly. 

Thanks!

The three research conference rooms we have in the building are able to be scheduled via Google calendar by research labs and their members. The calendars are: ILSB Room 206, ILSB 308 and ILSB 408 Conference room. If you are a research lab member and do not have access to these calendars, please let me know. 

Please schedule time through Google calendar. The room uses an LSD-1 key, which I believe most labs already have, again, if your lab does not have this key please let me know. 

Thank you all.

We will have a short water outage in the building this Friday morning from 7AM until 8AM.

Domestic and laboratory water will be affected, RO water for the labs and vivarium will be unaffected. 

Thank you for your understanding.