Poor Dartmouth

DanHolohan

Average tuition, room & board is just over $80,000 per year.

And then there's this:
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2022/02/sleeping-in-earmuffs-as-students-deal-with-inconsistent-dorm-temperatures-college-looks-to-update-heating-systems

Jamie Hall

Look. Just because you got to, went to, graduated from, or run an Ivy League college doesn't mean that you're qualified to run a can opener, never mind a heating system. I have several cousins who are living proof...

DanHolohan

From a recent podcast based on an article I wrote several years ago:

Here’s to preventative maintenance, a practice that’s often overlooked. When the laws of physics and the laws of economics collide, the laws of economics nearly always win in the short run. The laws of physics, however, don’t care about anyone’s budget, or anyone’s ignorance. The laws of physics just win in the end. Always.

So even if people are putting off preventative maintenance today to save a buck, they’ll pay tomorrow, and through the nose because there’s no escaping Mother Nature. She can be vicious and she’s forever relentless. And when things go wrong, we blame her instead of ourselves. But I think we’re to blame because we’re dopey enough to pretend that Mother Nature isn’t there. Here’s a higher-education example of just that:

Dartmouth College gets about $60,000 per undergraduate for yearly tuition. It's not the most expensive school around, but still dear enough to get your attention.

James Wright, who was once the President of Dartmouth, lived in an old house that had also been home to the previous six Dartmouth presidents. It’s one of the nice things about being the boss. The place got a long-overdue renovation a few years back, and all to make it ready for the next president and his family. They knocked down most of the walls and spent six months and $2.8 million to fix up the place.

Let that number sink in for a moment.

I read an interview where President Wright explained that when he and his wife, Susan, first moved into the house in 1998, he chose to delay renovations to the heating, water and plumbing systems because of its “invasiveness.” I can understand that, but here we are all these years later and you can imagine what’s gone on in that old house since the Wrights moved in. You don’t know “invasiveness” until you’ve ignored and upset Mother Nature. She never sleeps.

"We live in a wonderful, historic house,” says President Wright. “But it’s an embarrassment for an institution like Dartmouth to have a house in this condition. So I am pleased that the Board is more than willing to go ahead with some of these renovations."

And the parents grabbed their wallets.

The house was still using its original heating and plumbing systems, but they replaced all of that. They switched from steam to hot water because (are you ready? This is a quote.) “The steam system has resulted in significant heat loss, leaks and damage.”

Okay, I’ll go for the leaks and damage. Steam systems will do that if you ignore them for nearly a century, but I think the heat loss has more to do with the building envelope than it has to do with the system itself. But, hey, I’m no Ivy Leaguer.

“The current system is not only uncomfortable, it's wasteful," President Wright said. "It's not efficient, and Dartmouth should do better. We're going to miss living in the house immensely, but we certainly won't miss the heating system in the house, and we won't miss the other problems.

“There is water in the basement oftentimes. There are issues of mold down there, which really can be a health issue, and there is seepage coming in from the foundation."

And he was living with this for years. Go figure.

Dartmouth offers degrees in engineering, up to the Ph.D. level. Wouldn’t you think that, over all these years, at least one of those students would have checked out the heating system in the president’s house? Or perhaps done a bit of preventative maintenance. Reached out and touched the real stuff. Or is it just me?

franzsf

Dartmouth offers degrees in engineering, up to the Ph.D. level. Wouldn’t you think that, over all these years, at least one of those students would have checked out the heating system in the president’s house?

My dad is a (retired) PhD professor of electrical engineering. When I was ten or so, I watched him and his PhD professor colleague spend a day trying to install a dimmer switch in our dining room. I love my dad, but I think there's a sometimes a world of difference between theory and practice.

ratio

Thinking isn't too popular any more, especially in institutes of higher-training.

mattmia2

About 80% of their graduates think they are too good to work there and won't work for what they are willing to pay...

SlamDunk

Here’s to preventative maintenance, a practice that’s often overlooked. When the laws of physics and the laws of economics collide, the laws of economics nearly always win in the short run. The laws of physics, however, don’t care about anyone’s budget, or anyone’s ignorance. The laws of physics just win in the end. Always.


This sums it up as neatly as possible!

Jon_blaney

When I started a job at the local university, I asked the head of maintenance about their PM plan. His reply, "when it breaks, we fix it". For years I watched them patch holes in the same underground steam main. I would joke with other staff that I expected them to try and tap one of those mysterious thermal vents to heat a building. Every time someone writes in with their questions about leaking copper pipe in their slab floor, I see the backhoe out across campus digging up a steam line to put on a patch.

ethicalpaul

What would be a PM for an underground steam pipe?

mattmia2

Replacement every 50 years or so. Testing and repair of steam traps maybe annually or so.

Solid_Fuel_Man

Some type of material which we have invented in the last 100 years which doesn't rot..... 

bburd

An avid tinkerer before college, I would have loved to get my hands on some of the HVAC equipment there. We had district steam feeding steam radiation, hot water converters, air handlers and chillers— some of them steam absorbers. Older buildings had pneumatic or analog electronic controls, and DDC was just coming into the new ones.

The place was a union shop, and the unions were very sensitive about anyone else touching “their” work— to the point that when one student organization stenciled their logo on the walls of their basement  space, they had to pay a fine to the painters’ union.

I had to content myself with filing work order requests for things like missing pneumatic thermostats that led to systems never shutting off…

The dorms mostly had outdoor temperature controls with no room thermostats, and most were routinely overheated. One dining hall had multiple indoor thermostats but was at least 80° on cold winter days for years, and despite an army of technicians crawling over the place they couldn’t fix it until they gut renovated the building.

DanHolohan

Great story, @bburd. Where was the college? Thanks!

bburd

This was in Philadelphia.

A few friends and I also had fun getting into the steam tunnels and mechanical rooms when they were occasionally left unlocked. Just to look at stuff.

DanHolohan

Good steam town. 

cross_skier

Dartmouth should look at best practices from another Ivy League University, Cornell.

https://fcs.cornell.edu/departments/energy-sustainability/utilities/heating-distribution

delcrossv

cross_skier said:

Dartmouth should look at best practices from another Ivy League University, Cornell.

https://fcs.cornell.edu/departments/energy-sustainability/utilities/heating-distribution

A REAL engineering school. 👍

PC7060

delcrossv said:

Dartmouth should look at best practices from another Ivy League University, Cornell.

https://fcs.cornell.edu/departments/energy-sustainability/utilities/heating-distribution

A REAL engineering school. 👍

And JHU in Baltimore with their cogeneration system is pretty hot!
https://www.mikespecian.com/2013/11/21/jhu-feels-power-with-cogeneration-plant/
But you will need to go to the JHU Applied Physic Lab campus a few miles down the road for their best engineering program.

DanHolohan

One of my favorite Dead Men, Rolla C. Carpenter, was a big deal at Cornell, and at a pivotal time for the heating industry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolla_C._Carpenter

TAG

I dated someone from Dartmouth ... I can attest it was hot. Is Bburd talking about my old hunting ground? We adjusted the winter temps with the windows

bburd

TAG said:

I dated someone from Dartmouth ... I can attest it was hot. Is Bburd talking about my old hunting ground? We adjusted the winter temps with the windows

No, I was referring to a school in Philadelphia, where we also made much use of the “double hung zone valve”.

TAG

BB -- I went to school in Philly. Heated with steam loop .... My friend was out on the main line at another with a steam plant next to it ..... it seems all those steam systems had the potential to overheat the buildings

cross_skier

I think all systems have a potential to be bad.  It takes the institution's leaders to realize the system must have worked as designed many years ago.  Those leaders have to make the effort to recruit the right team.

You don't want to hire the guys who say, "you got what you got".

TAG

cross_skier said:

I think all systems have a potential to be bad.  It takes the institution's leaders to realize the system must have worked as designed many years ago.  Those leaders have to make the effort to recruit the right team.

You don't want to hire the guys who say, "you got what you got".

Agree. Both of my places in the Philadelphia -- one in Center City and the other in Chestnut Hill had very old systems. The CC house predated heat and the CH house was original pre WWI .... both worked great once they had guys who knew how to put them back to original and fix the valves gone bad

archibald tuttle

IIRC Brown circulates high pressure hot water throughout the campus with steam generated at the metered exit to each building. i haven't really detected a sense of whether the buildings are perennially overheated. I'm also unsure of the mix of emitters between traditional radiation and fan coils. Sounds like most of the problems reported in this article could be managed with systematic steam trap maintenance and possibly thermostatically controlled rad valves.

I love how these administrators act like they know what is feasible. if they did, they wouldn't have to replace heating systems to get them to work. balance will always be challenging but the results on display sound like maintenance not system suitability problems. (And I doubt their dormitories couldn't be renovated with radiant floor pouring gypcrete over the existing floors. There could be a question of the cost versus hydronic fan coils but not as infeasible as suggested).