we had hired a "engineer" to assume the role of a facility manager.I was doubtful of her skills/ability/knowledge from day one and let management know may concerns. The management response was , "give her a chance, we all have to learn"
she was given a staff of two "gophers" ie clerks with no skills, just hands and legs
many months later after one of her staff member's came to me and asked for help
"what's wrong" I asked
He said "My boss ( the facility manager) had installed a floor model 3 port Ac unit in a closet. In a four month period they had replaced the unit three times
i asked "what was the problem"
he siad "well, i followed her instruction and drilled a hole in the wall to let the heat out for the output duct, but the unit just ices up and the closet gets really warm, then the unit shuts down."
i looked in the room and noticed that something was wrong. I asked the clerk if he knew how the unit worked. He said "yes", it takes the heat out the room through the duct and blows cold air to cool the equipment.
i said" that's nice , but where does the make-up air come from?". he said " what is make-up air?
i explained that if you take air out of the room you must replace the air, if not a vacuum will be formed or air moved will not occur. given that there was no vent on the door , no fresh air was able to enter the closet to replace the air that was sent our side, thus the unit AC ends up heating the room ( 2nd law of thermodynamics)
eventually , the facility manager replaced the door with one with a vent and then she announced to all staff that she had fixed the problem. I do not recall her thanking me. .
one year later she did a mid sized server room with 12 racks
again the users came to me and complained that the two custom chiller units were icing up and the room was getting warm [NOTE never buy custom chillers] this time the two chillers had 16" diameter ducts leaving the room, that is a fairly large air volume for a room
i asked again, where does the make air come from. i brought the facility manager in and asked her the same questions, she claimed she was an HVAC expert that I did not know anything and that i was making up this term.
I said "oh ya, watch this".
i took her and placed her just in front of the server room entrance. I then open the door a bit.
What happened? the make-up air now had a path. With the door closed the chillers were unable to evacuate anywhere near their rated capacity of heat as the only make-up air available came from the crack under the door. With the lab door open a bit, one could feel a massively large volume of air rushing into the room.
She stated lets just leave the door open then that will fix it
i stated a firm NO, If you do so then you will then upset and disturb the building HVAC system. The building later HVAC system is neither expecting nor can handle this large increase of low pressure, i e the air gong through the server room and out the two 16" diameter ducts
She refuses to admit her design does not work and the users are now stuck as she will not permit then to hire anyone to solve their problem Only she can do that job
We are trying to remove her form her position now. My boss thinks it will be difficult unless the building catches on fire and we can pin it on her
guess what i want for Xmas?