Gunpowder Chronicle posted on November 9, 2008 9:22 PM | Rating:
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O'Guvnah is a big proponent of telling citizens where they should set their thermostats, how much they should drive, what types of cars they should drive, and how much electricity they should use. It would be really nice if O'Guvnah could get his act together and push his own agencies to follow some of that advice.
As you all know, I work for the University Of Maryland, Baltimore on Lombard Street. For the past two weeks, despite repeated calls to the Facilities Department, our entire building has been heat-saturated, because the air handling systems are pumping VERY HOT air into the building. Even when the temperatures climbed into the 60's last week, the HVAC units kept increasing the heat load in the building, to the point where the interior of the building ranged from 85 degrees in the lobby to 82 degrees on the fifth floor.
To respond, employees were opening up windows, running fans, and the like just to get the temperature down. Of course, this only had the effect of actually increasing the amount of hot air the system was putting out.
Now, as the son of stationary engineer and director of facilities, I am well aware of the challenges in heating and cooling old buildings. I am aware that many old buildings (this one is an old warehouse for either Hoschild-Kohn or Hutlzer's) suffer from hot and cold spots due to uneven heating and cooling. I get that. But I am more concerned that the University Facilities department is totally out of touch with their own trouble ticket process, and how much that is costing the state in my tax dollars to heat a building that doesn't really need it.
I am also aware that most buildings exposed to sunlight will actually continue to heat themselves above 50 degrees, and so the need to increase the heat energy is minimal. Apparently, the faciliites department of University of Maryland is not aware -- or just doesn't care.
What I would like to suggest to O'Guvnah is that before he comes calling on the citizens of Maryland to "make sacrifices" to combat "climate change", he look to his own state agencies that are fundamentally avoiding their own responsibilities in this area.
In other words, get your own frakking house in order before you come knocking on my door.