Current status of the Library's HVAC System
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The Plainville Public Library was built between 1988 and 1989. The building is currently 33 years old and approximately 7000 square feet.
Healthy air is our public building is imperative for our staff and customers. The Library has 3 sections for heating and air conditioning: Children's Room Staff/conference room Area Adult Area These are the 3 AC condenser units original to the building in 1989. They use R22 as the cooling medium, which is now outlawed in Massachusetts. R22 units can only be recharged with recovered R22. New R22 cannot be sold in Massachusetts. R22 units cannot be reconfigured to use a new refrigerant according to Mass. Law. They must be replaced. The Children's room unit is leaking and losing pounds of R22 a year, which we must replace each year in order for the unit to work at all. It has been leaking for at least 7 years. |
adult unit
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children's unit
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staff unit
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3 thermostats
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The Library has 3 Thermostats on the wall in 3 locations.
We have no idea which one actually does what, so we set them all to the same temperature and hope for the best. The wiring could be daisy chained from one to another - we do not know. Note: none of these are programmable or able to sense occupancy. The Thermostat for the largest area - the Adult section, where our adult books and seating are, is actually located behind the circulation desk. So that seating area for the public will either get incredibly warm or cold as it has no relation to the area behind the desk under a shorter ceiling. Being that none of these are programmable, AC is only used when people are in the building when we can be assured that the fans are on and the coils are not freezing, resulting in higher humidity in the building in the summer time. |
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This is our control panel for our 3 HVAC sections.
The Switch is set to either SUMMER or WINTER or OFF The boiler is either ON or OFF. None of this is programmable or energy efficient. There are 3 sets of overhead fans that are used for both AC and Heat. The switches say AUTO/OFF/ON. But we are pretty sure that the AUTO feature does not work. Fans never turn off when the thermostat reaches the correct temperature. Actually the switch for the overhead fans in the children's room may not work at all. Those air handlers above the children's room come on all by themselves even when the entire control panel if OFF. If the fans are on and pushing cold air when we don't want it then we have to turn them off by the turning off the breaker for the fans in electric panel. Breakers should not be used as switches and we have already replaced this breaker once. |
control panel
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We use a forced hot water system for our heat. The boiler and 4 pumps were replaced in 2012 after a complete failure. Which means this boiler is now 10 years old.
We have a large container of water in the center of the staff area and we do not have a floor drain if it were to leak. As it has leaked in the past, we have water damage to the surrounding area carpets and walls. The system also continues to LOCKOUT and not fire especially when it is above 50 degrees outside. This has been looked at by our heating person, and adjustments made but it still does it. So I have to manually press the reset button each time it does this. And if it does LOCKOUT overnight then the boiler does not get turned back on until a person is in the building to press the button. |
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Once we went with an energy efficient boiler, we needed to add a condensate pump for the water the systems releases. This water is pumped up a plastic tube, through the drop ceiling and back down into our kitchen sink. We have already replaced the trap on the sink twice due to leaks most likely due to the acidic nature of the water. We now have a neutralizer inline, so perhaps this will at least reduce the acidic nature of the water and let our sink trap last longer.
The condensate pump has been replaced twice, each time after finding water all over the floor in the boiler room and leaking onto the rug in the hallway. |
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The baseboard heat around the perimeter of each of our 3 HVAC sections is forced hot water.
The baseboard heat loop for the entire adult section (the biggest area of the library) has a leak that no one can find. The leak cannot be found because the pipes all run through a slab foundation, which has probably shifted over time. This means we only have the overhead air handlers in the adult area for heat. |
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Here are the 4 pumps installed in 2012.
You can see we have removed the on/off handle for the section that leaks so we do not use it by accident. The upper pump is used for all of the upper air handlers in all 3 sections of our building and there is no way to adjust it to just 1 section. So if we need heat in the Adult section of the library we are getting heat from above for all 3 sections of the library, whether we need it or not. |
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SEER ratings
Our current 32 year old AC system is most likely a 7 or 8 SEER rating. If we upgrade to a 16-18 SEER rating system, we could be saving about 50% of our costs for running our current AC condenser units. |
SEER ratings
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repair or replace graphic
Humidity Control
We have none beyond what moisture the air conditioning system pulls from the air.
According to the Northeast Document Conservation Center temperature and humidity should be controlled and kept as a consistent level. " A frequent recommendation is a stable temperature no higher than 70°F and a stable relative humidity between a minimum of 30% and a maximum of 50%." See the documentation at
https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/2.-the-environment/2.1-temperature,-relative-humidity,-light,-and-air-quality-basic-guidelines-for-preservation
With the heat blowing constantly the building was measured to have 17% humidity with a local meter.
Healthy air is our public building is imperative for our staff and customers.
According to the Northeast Document Conservation Center temperature and humidity should be controlled and kept as a consistent level. " A frequent recommendation is a stable temperature no higher than 70°F and a stable relative humidity between a minimum of 30% and a maximum of 50%." See the documentation at
https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/2.-the-environment/2.1-temperature,-relative-humidity,-light,-and-air-quality-basic-guidelines-for-preservation
With the heat blowing constantly the building was measured to have 17% humidity with a local meter.
Healthy air is our public building is imperative for our staff and customers.