Furnace problems at the pool & Artsplace
I got this email from Town Hall yesterday:
There was a carbon monoxide leak at the pool this morning and naturally the facility had to be evacuated. The Fire Dept. is on the scene and is ventilating the building. The cause appears to be with a heating unit and a repair crew is en route. A similar problem occurred a few years ago. This is the first unscheduled closing that has occurred in well over a year. I will provide any additional information as I receive it.
And the WRAs Lauresha Xhihani wrote this piece on the pool closing:
Just as the public swimming pool was recovering from nearly two months of disruptive construction, it was abruptly closed again Sunday morning after two separate gas leaks were reported.
A leak from a heating system inside the vinyl bubble that covers the Olympic size pool closed the facility before it opened Sunday. Fire Chief Jack Casner said firefighters were called to the pool around 8 a.m. by pool staff after carbon monoxide alarms went off. Casner said there were high levels of toxic gas inside the bubble. The gas leaked from the heating system.
My understanding is that there was another furnace problem today. But it was not at the pool. Today's problem was at Artsplace.
Tim White
25 comments:
The pool farce continues unabated. The tax payers at this point deserve a complete list of particulars associated with the supposed furnace carbon monoxide leak.
Maybe TW could get and post on this blog the actual maintenance records associated with the suspect furnace, if in fact our town workers actually have routine maintenance conducted and if the record of the maintenance particulars are actually documented.
Won't the toxic fumes just pass thru the bubble like the heat does?
I think I have an idea that may help solve some of the income problems with the pool: Pink Floyd Night....let the bubble fill up with "harmful fumes" and charge a cover to come in and swim while watching "The Wall" video....psychodelic swimming
Breachway, great idea. You go in first and let us know when it is deadly.
Co is a deadly odorless, colorless, tasteless gas that suffocates those that breathe it in. Everyone should have a detector in their home and call 911 when it sounds. Just because you can't smell it does not mean it is not there
And guess who handles the furnace/heat issues at these buildings? At what point do we forget who is contributing to football/turf and make sure that we are safe in these buildings?
Q. guess who handles the furnace/heat issues at these buildings?
A. Since the town owns it the town is responsible for the maintenance. Clearly something isn't working very well.
All that money being spent on town employees and in the end tax paying swimmers during the December swimming season in New England come close to being poisoned by carbon monoxide while the facility tries hard to keep the pool water from freezing.
10:57 - get your facts straight. Cheshire public works does not maintain the towns boilers. White-Bowman has a contract to do that. Any co problems fall on them
It really shows how high in the clouds our noses are when we have a "December swimming season". I remember as a kid we only had one season and we called it summer. With all the other problems in this town, state, and country this is the biggest one to you? Some residents need to get their priorities straight
9:26: I would say carbon monoxide produced in any public building in this town is a priority. I wouldn't want my kids or family there with that going on, would you? Whether you like the pool or not, that facility serves the public. If we bulldoze it, that's one thing; if it's open, it has to be right. Carbon monoxide being produced is not a normal occurrence in a furnace from my research, something has to go wrong to make that happen. The paper makes it sound like CO is in pipes already and leaked out. There shouldn't be CO there in the first place-- thank god we had CO detectors there. I hope we have them at the other buildings. Safety is always a priority, and lack of it in this case IS a problem.
10:57 - get your facts straight. Cheshire public works does not maintain the towns boilers. White-Bowman has a contract to do that. Any co problems fall on them
All the more reason to rename the town to Bowmanville.
How interesting to believe - - -'Cheshire public works does not maintain the towns boilers. White-Bowman has a contract to do that. Any co problems fall on them'
Now, let me see by reading between your lines. You seem to be saying that somehow WB writes town of Cheshire contracts to itself and WB has a town of Cheshire check book and writes itself checks. Usually it has to be the town which writes the contracts and writes the check etc. Cheshire must be a really good place to do business, like you make it sound like self help type business.
Clearly you are missing the point. It is hoped it is accidental on your part. It is a town facility and the town and the town employees are responsible. If they can't be responsible they should no longer be employed.
And town employees overseeing the work should look long and hard at what work was done. It is almost unimaginable that credible furnace maintenance on an installation as new as the town pool would result in such a massive and poisonous carbon monoxide scenario in a public building.
What is unimaginable is how uninformed people may be about how CO is produced in a heating system like the one you may have in your home.
CO is made when an appliance like a furnace, boiler, or stove, especially burning natural gas, is firing with an incorrect burn, just like an old car with a poorly adjusted carburator-- the air/fuel mix is wrong. There's lots of stuff on the web about this, and lots of reports of people getting sick or worse. Check Wikipedia for CO poisoning to get the info that I did. Check with the FD. It's not hard to believe at all that someone working on a furnace screwed up. Something had to go wrong for this to have happened.
The town does not have a certified boiler or HVAC technician. White Bowman serves this role. Whenever there is a problem with a boiler, White Bowman gets called to fix it. No town employee touches any heating equipment. The town liability is limited to owning the equipment. Safe and proper operation of this equipment is Bowmans responsibility by contract. The town keeps maintenance logs of when Bowman is called and what work is performed.
Every town building has co detectors in them. Since these are stand alone detectors, they are only as good as the employees working around them. These detectors are the same as the ones you can purchase at Hines (Bowmanville). Had we installed a hard wired detector with monitoring, (like a burgular and fire alarm) authorities would have been alerted hours earlier and the pool would have been open for business.
What Tim should do is request the maintenance log for those boilers. He will see that White Bowman serviced that equipment the day before. It will show either a boiler cleaning or adjustment. That technician is the one responsible for the co build-up.
White Bowman and the rest of the Bowman businesses have a history of pushing around town authorities to their benifit. Why else do all town offices have charges at Hines, own the building a political party works from, etc.
9:18 it appears you know more of what happened. Perhaps you can pass this information onto the Cheshire Herald and watch them run from it. LOL.
The cause of the pool furnace CO issue was related to a loose screw, literally:
"Michelangelo said a screw had come loose, possibly by the furnace's vibration, causing a damper which let air into the furnace to fail. Incomplete combustion produced carbon monoxide which was pumped into the pool bubble."
So there you. More loose screws in Cheshire.
W-B must stand for "won't breathe". We should not have turd- chasers working on equipment like this.
it is so interesting to see that amongst us are those who believe "The town liability is limited to owning the equipment. Safe and proper operation of this equipment is Bowmans responsibility by contract. The town keeps maintenance logs of when Bowman is called and what work is performed."
If this is true everyone in town and everyone who uses town facilities should be forced to read a bold faced written placard at the entrance to every town facility and on all roads entering town. It should proclaim the town isn't really responsible because those working for the town don't know anything about anything. It is the contractors who are responsible for everything.
Clearly it isn't supposed to work this way. If a town has boilers, pumps, trucks, electrical, and building etc which must be maintained safely there must be individuals on staff who are legally responsible for maintaining public safety. In the case of stuff like boilers no doubt the town has state licensed professionals on staff who ought to be seeing to it that there are processes, policies, and procedures in place which maintain public safety, 24/7.
One can only wonder what caused the problem that occurred. Could it be that somehow the positive bubble pressure and the furnace are not always compatible?
You raise good points. I think the contractor would be responible for the mess if he was just there or provided something or service at the site that led to the issue. If it's the design (which it probably isn't because it didn't happen before), it would more likely be an engineering issue. But you are right-- in the end, the Town is responsible.
Burning gas isn't as easy as making gas.
To all that think that the town needs to have a licensed tech bcause he own this equipment, I need to ask, are you certified to work on your own equipment?
Your home and family is like a town. Your family is the residents and the home is the property. Family members, or employees, maintain the home, or town, to the best of their abilities. When a problem comes up that cannot be fixed, the family member or employee calls a service contractor.
Before you start criticizing my analology, think. How much would it cost us to have an expert for every sitsuation?
The constitution grants states the right to regulate professions. All states have laws and regulations concerning public safety. Usually really important stuff which could adversely impact public safety requires someone with a state issued license to oversee things. Those licenses are hard to get, you just don't show up and pay a couple of bucks and then go to work. There are education, testing and significant experience requirements to be met. Those who are not licensed may be in serious violation of state laws if and when they do certain types of work on things like furnaces and electrical systems in public buildings for instance.
It might be more expensive to hire a licensed professional, be it a doctor, a lawyer, an electrician, a boiler operator or whatever. The flip side to this is if an unlicensed person is practicing surgery or boiler repairs it is the consumer who is going to get hurt.
The real issue with the pool though is just how an almost new heating system failed so miserably and why no one involved was aware the failure would occur until after it was too late. Lucky for those of us who like to go swimming in December that it didn't happen on a busy pool day.
I think you are missing the point. The town is not required to have an HVAC tech on it's payroll. White Bowman is filling that role as a contractor. They hold all of the licenses and certifacations needed to work on the system. That is what HVAC companies do. Simple way to understand this is any part for a heating system that you can buy at Home Depot you can fix yourself. They do not sell boilers because Joe Homeowner cannot replace it on his own.
On the end, responsibility falls on the contractor to ensure safe and proper operation
I think you are missing the point. The town is not required to have an HVAC tech on it's payroll. White Bowman is filling that role as a contractor. They hold all of the licenses and certifacations needed to work on the system. That is what HVAC companies do. Simple way to understand this is any part for a heating system that you can buy at Home Depot you can fix yourself. They do not sell boilers because Joe Homeowner cannot replace it on his own.
On the end, responsibility falls on the contractor to ensure safe and proper operation
This town does appear to play games in association with taking responsibility. In reality town managers are responsible for insuring that everything is safe and that people are not put in harm's way.
How managers assure that in general is in many ways up to them. Failure to do so is never good for one's career and can lead to massive legal problems sometimes too.
Of course if someone gets hurt or killed in the end it is the responsible managers who will need to show they had policies, procedures, processes and oversight in place and properly functioning to mitigate any problems in the first place. There are clear paths to follow to be certain that as a manager you have adequately addressed things like policies, procedures, processes and oversight.
So just how does Cheshire do these things? Sounds to me like some are saying the town government always relies upon just one little company to do all of this for them. If so tax payers are not getting value for their tax dollars.
Normally large organizations like for instance towns, hospitals, universities, hotels etc have an engineering department for instance to take care of the physical plant just like they have an attorney to take care of their legal obligations. Then there is a purchasing department which puts together contracts with contractors. And of course there is usually some sort of oversight as well.
Time for the new town council to get town government focused back on the basics.
you are all missing the point, unless you are in direct conversation with the contractor or the town of cheshire, then you should refrain from speaking about the particulars of performance of the system, the company (w-b) or the town. This blog is based on hearsay. The fact of the matter is that there was a CO alarm at the pool. The other fact is that the building was rendered safe for public use after the apparent problem was fixed. Breakdowns oocur in all aspects of life. It may be your washer machine, car, computer, or cell phone. If the light bulb burns out, would we blame the electrican who changed the switch. Like in all aspects of life we as citizens should not point fingers until the facts are set forth. The focus on the pool should be ways to conserve energy and resources to make it more efficenct. The town should investigate green technologies such as geothermal, cogen, and high efficency gas. I have read case studies online where these new systems can pay for themselves in less than five years. After this the energy savings would be money back in the pocket of the taxpayers.
Having been to the pool facility a number of times refraining from voicing concerns and dismay over a dangerous man-made carbon monoxide accident would seem to be only right. Anyone who went in there, both workers and swimmers, was at greater than anticipated risk because of this situation.
A public facility that has been flooded with significant amounts of carbon monoxide is a significant public safety hazard. It is never, ever, ever supposed to happen, ever.
It should be expected that the officials responsible for said facility, not some low level contract boiler technician would immediately begin a public investigation and report immediately to the public. So far there has been no exact details of this event provided directly to the public by high town officials.
Of course by now who knows, maybe any evidence which could support valid conclusions has been lost. This is often the case in these types situations where there are no clear cut lines of responsibility and in the end everyone is looking to some outside low level contractor.
As was suggested, green technology might have helped to eliminate this problem too. Like, maybe if the pool was an outdoor pond which in the winter could freeze for skating the carbon monoxide threat and the immense bill for the fuel needed to generate the CO would be completely eliminated in the first place.
Another point: had any other contractor been employed to service the heating system at the pool, what do you think would have happened? A) Would it be revealed exactly what happened and who was responsible? MOST LIKELY. and B) Would the issue ever have occurred in the first place? MOST LIKELY NOT, because that contractor would know that if he screwed up, he would be held accountable. That doesn't happen here. A screw loose? Amazing how that happens, especially if a technician just happened to be there the day before working on the heating equipment. If that happened at your home, would you write that off to a random occurrence? Every one in this town needs to wake up... that is, if they are not unconscious from carbon monoxide fumes.
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