...... "too young to know" *wink* : )

RickDelta

@TheGuysBeenDoingThisForALongTime

Two HAVC things I've run into that has me wondering about.

I was servicing an EPABX phone system in a very old elementary school. Next to the phone equipment room was this open 20 foot high by 4 foot wide "ferris wheel" slowly rotating in a bath of water and the water falling from each bucket as it rotated.

Was this an Air Conditioning "water chiller" ?

The other thing,

If my memory serves me well, I remember when I was in 4th grade, the school janitors would "burn" the trash in the school basement!

Looking behind this boiler, to the left of the stack, see that triangle w/ curved bottom thing?

That I assume is moving an air "damper" inside this chimney that goes out to the roof.

Down lower , is a large swing door to see inside the fire box. There are movable grates in the fire box floor. I see absolutely no signs of any "coal" burning use.

Was this used just for trash (paper) buring?

EBEBRATT-Ed

They did used to burn trash.

ethicalpaul

lots of old school buildings still have an incinerator chimney if I’m not mistaken

Grallert

I have the complete set of building plans for the building I maintain from 1924. Very indispensable for me. The cellar plan shows an incinerator and the stack still remains. The incinerator left in the fifties. I still run across the ash piles while I walk through the campus woods. Pretty cool stuff

RickDelta

@Grallert

……. what ya think that water "Ferris Wheel" thing was? A water ride for the kids? LOL!! : ) ……. or a water fall powered grinding mill?? : (

other observations there:

The building had one large deep basement area , but most everywhere else (class rooms,etc) there was only a 4 foot crawl space under all the first floors.

Entrance to all the crawl space areas were "sealed off" by small access panels. Big yellow warning stickers covered the access panels stating "No access permitted - Asbestos Hazard" (something to that effect and more).

Well …… of course I had to peek in there! : )

You can picture what it would normally look like for a crawl space area…. right?

Well, This was like "The Wizard of Oz" when Dorothy first opened the front door! The entire floor was covered in one foot of bright white blown-in insulation. I don't believe this was of the asbestos type because of its very white, cotton ball appearance. I'm assuming that this insulation was blown in after they removed the asbestos type as best they could, but was impossible to completely remove all the hazardous dust fibers.

……. I decided it was not a good idea to go in there! : )

Grallert

@RickDelta I'd love to see a picture of the Ferris wheel. I can't picture it or it's purpose.

RickDelta

@Grallert

From a google search, this looks to me like a very large first generation commercial evaporative "swamp cooler" ….. to provide cool air throughout the building.

mattmia2

The elementary school I went to was still burning trash in the 80's.

The insulation sounds like rockwool. The asbestos is probably on the pipes.

RickDelta

@mattmia2

In 4th grade, I held the highly coveted job of taking the black board erasers down to the basement and run them thru a machine that would remove (clean) the chalk from them. : )