More Heating Troubles at the School

Air handler failures, sludge and air in the system,

Another part of the Nottingham School’s heating system has failed. A coil in one of the older air handlers leaked glycol into the attic, causing glycol odors on the second floor. As it is winter, the air handler cannot be replaced. A replacement coil must be custom fabricated. It is on order and is expected to be installed during the three-day Martin Luther King weekend. The coil must be installed when classes are not in session because there will be glycol odors.

The air handlers heat the second floor of the school. Six classrooms are affected by this air handler being out of service. The school has 12 air handlers, 4 of which are old.

There was an emergency School Board meeting held on January 7 to discuss this latest failure, and a subsequent regularly scheduled meeting on January 8 in which there was further discussion of the heating issues. The January 7 meeting was not video recorded. Minutes are not yet available.

The school has ordered six ceiling-mount electric heaters, at a cost of $24k, to be used in classrooms suffering from heating problems. These should be at the school by January 14.

Over the Christmas break the school had ENE Systems inspect the school’s heating system. ENE is the parent company of EEI, the consulting company that provided an opinion about the school’s heating problems on December 18. ENE checked the heating system’s performance every morning over the holiday. They found and addressed a large number issues.

• Some components were set to run hotter than they should have been set for.

• Some components were set to run at insufficient levels of pressure. This is particularly a problem because the system has a large amount sludge in it [presumably from the glycol slowly dissolving everything it comes in contact with, particularly the pipes and gaskets.] This sludge is prone to plugging parts of the system. Increasing the pressure solved the problem of several classrooms being chronically under target temperature. The school has been taking twice-daily temperature readings in these classrooms for the past month.

• One air handler was found to not be creating heat, but instead transferring into the reheating coils in the building fluid the same temperature as the outside temperature. It was discovered that its exhaust fan was failing to run due to a tripped circuit. It was reset. Further troubleshooting found that the contacts in the electrical overload assembly were 7-8 rotations loose. This restored the air handler to operation, and restored the classrooms serviced by this air handler to 70 degrees or higher.

• An “enormous” amount of air was found in the system. The air bleeder in the boiler room has required numerous cleanings due to sludge fouling. Air in the system remains a problem. Air is continuously entering the heating system’s pipes, requiring frequent bleeding day to day. [I presume just as glycol leaks out in some places under pressure, air is drawn in through other leaks in the system in some places under vacuum]. Dr. HasBrouck says this has been typical for the system when it has been serviced by Palmer & Sicard since she has been Superintendent.

• Low temperatures in the gym were found to be caused by an air handler being offline due to a minor problem, which has been fixed.

• Several strainers had to be cleaned out due to sludge buildup that was blocking the flow of heat.

• The new remote controls ordered by the board in December were installed on January 3rd. The school now receives daily automatically generated detailed reports on the performance of the heating system, allowing staff to not have to make daily visits to the school to observe how the system is performing.

• Air dampers for the boilers were found to be frozen shut due to failed actuators. The actuators were replaced, restoring proper air for combustion.

The two magnetic filters were ordered on December 19. They will be installed as soon as they are delivered. These filters are expected to help address the sludge.

Problems with the heating system are likely to be ongoing over the winter as any comprehensive repair of the system will require the heating system to be shut down for three weeks. This cannot be done until the weather is warm enough for the school to not require heating. ENE has recommended that the glycol be replaced; however, EEI has recommended that the small sections of pipe that are exposed to sub-freezing temperatures be heated and insulated to ensure that they do not freeze, making glycol unnecessary. ENE made several other recommendations about overhauling parts of the system during the shutdown. They also said that some of the air handlers need to be replaced.

ENE and Palmer & Sicard have been requested to provide proposals for overhauling the heating system once the heating season is over.

At the January 8 School Board meeting, Vice Chairman Lori Kilbreth expressed concerns that the school may have violated warranties on parts of the heating system, particularly the boilers installed in 2023, by having ENE service them. The boilers were installed by Maine Boilers, with a service contract from Palmer & Sicard. She requested copies of the contracts and warranties.

The school has obtained several industrial air purifiers, on loan from the Raymond school district, and will soon have some more borrowed from the Exeter school district. It is hoped that these will be able to address glycol odors.

The board discussed trying to hire an HVAC consultant to take on the responsibility of managing the vendors and overseeing how the school addresses the ongoing problems.

I emailed Superintendant HasBrouck a list of several questions about specific issues mentioned in her January 6 letter to parents. Here are the questions and answers readers may find most relevant.

Q: I've not seen ENE referenced as a vendor before. Have they had any ongoing responsibility? If so, how is this responsibility different from that of Palmer & Sicard? Or has the board decided to replace P&S with ENE?

A: I am confused by this question as you reference ENE as a subsidiary of EEI later in this correspondence yourself. So you have answered your own question. P & S does regular service maintenance as well.

Q: I've not seen any mention of the system running too hot. What caused this? When was it discovered?

A: I cannot speak to when it was exactly discovered or what caused it. That is why we have experts working for us and here every day.

Q: I've not seen any mention of the system having unstable pressure. What caused this? When was it discovered?

A: Same as above.

Q: What were the coil strainers plugged with? Is it the same material as the previously mentioned "slugs"? How long were the coil strainers plugged? What caused them to be plugged?

A: I do not know the answer to these. I trust the experts to fix these problems. That is why I sought them out and hired them.

Q: What is being referred to as an "overload assembly"? The only relevant thing I found in an online search was for an electrical part - something that would not need to be tightened. Why did this part need to be tightened?

A: With use I am told parts can become loose.

Q: By "continually bleed air" does this mean that air is now constantly entering the system? Where is the air entering from?

A: When power goes out, as it often does in Nottingham, that is one way air can enter the system.

Q: What is a "reheat valve"? I did an online search for the term and did not find anything that seemed applicable to our heating system.

A: I do not know.

Q: It appears that the board has decided to reject EEI's recommendation that the plumbing lines to the air handlers be insulated so that glycol can be removed from the system and has adopted ENE's recommendation to replace the glycol. It seems odd that ENE would contradict the recommendations of its subsidiary, EEI. Where is this decision documented?

A: It is not rejected.

Q: Has the acidity of the water in the heating system been brought down since the meeting where EEI presented? If so, what was done to effect this? What are the most recent measurements?

A: Tested monthly and treated accordingly.

Other questions I have asked the Superintendent readers may find informative are:

Q: The December 21, 2022 packet mentions the potential creation of an HVAC subcommittee. Was this ever formed? If so, who is on it?
A: I have no knowledge of an HVAC subcommittee being formed.

Q: Videos of board meetings prior to 2023 are gone from YouTube. Why have these been deleted?

A: The School Board has contracted with Back Bay and learned the following information. In late 2023 IT was notified by Google that the style of YouTube account used at the school was no l was no longer allowed with the Education license we have. The final cut over the date was given in December 2023. IT set up Archive files, but we have learned that the School Board account was not uploaded. Later in January of 2024, IT attempted to archive and recover previous videos only to receive current content. The way the account was changed, all LIVE videos prior to December 2023 were removed. Back Bay continues to seek a solution.

Q: What vendor is responsible for testing and maintaining the water/glycol in the heating system?

A: MetroGroup tests the water/glycol. They provide that information to our service contractor.

Here’s the discussion of the heating problem at the January 8 School Board meeting:

Letters from the Superintendent to families about the heating issues can be found on the school’s homepage. Scroll down to find “School News.”