Chillin in Class

New Haven's new high-tech schools require teachers to electronically submit a request for maintenance to adjust the heat.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

It was too cold too often last winter in at least seven of New Haven’s new multimillion-dollar schools. While daffodils were shooting up early in an unusually warm January, teachers and principals were complaining of classrooms, or entire wings, that were too cold—sometimes day after day.

Maintenance reports for the Aquaculture Sound School, Celentano, Clinton Avenue, Edgewood, Fair Haven Middle, John C. Daniels and John S. Martinez schools all showed lots of complaints relating to heating and cooling systems. These seven schools are all new, built between 1999 and 2006, at a combined cost of $243 milliom to city and state taxpayers.

The new schools use complicated HVAC control systems manufactured by Honeywell International that oversee heating and cooling in the buildings. They cost between $65,000 and $75,000 to install in each new school. From a small office on Chapel Street, a few computers can monitor and regulate room temperatures in each classroom, humidity levels in the pool room and CO2 levels inside and out.

The centralized system allows snazzy remote access climate control, but means that teachers can’t just walk over to the wall and adjust the thermostat—instead they need to electronically file a maintenance request and wait for an off-site technician to correct the problem.

School maintenance requests from these seven buildings reviewed by the Advocate reveal a chilling trend. Take Celentano School, completed in 2005 at a cost of $32 million: On January 3, it was too cold in the school’s D wing. It was reported fixed on the 8th, but again on the 18th it was “still too cold in D-building.” The next day’s request says there was still no heat in D wing, or in rooms 306, 307 and 308. Then on the 22nd, it was too cold—56 degrees—in the main office suite. On the 25th it was only 56 degrees in room 110. Outside that day, it was in the 40s, according to the National Weather Service’s webpage. On the 31st, the heat was out in rooms 111 and 112. Again on February 20 and March 6, Celentano Principal Laura Russo told maintenance it was too cold. And on March 19, once again, there was no heat in the school’s D wing.

Celentano had the most temperature problems, records show, but the pattern repeated in each of the six other schools.

New Haven (and state) taxpayers are shelling out a lot of money to pay for new public schools—12 percent of last year’s $413 million city budget went to pay down debt, a large chunk of which comes from the city’s $1.5 billion school construction program.

Robin Golden, New Haven schools chief operating officer, argues that some maintenance requests simply stem from the fact that not everyone agrees on what’s a comfortable temperature. Golden says many requests are generated automatically, often during overnight hours, when temperatures are set lower to conserve energy. When the temperature dips below the set level, a report is generated automatically through a Honeywell center in Georgia, then sent to someone in New Haven.

One January request originating from Honeywell said that rooms 304, 321 and 325 at Fair Haven Middle School were too cold. But when those rooms were checked at 7:24 a.m., the temperatures were between 69 and 70 degrees.

School officials see the system as a preventive maintenance tool. “Ten years ago we had to close schools on Mondays because of problems that occurred over the weekends,” says Susan Weisselberg, school program coordinator. The flip side is now there’s more work to do.

“There’s been huge improvements,” in the system, says Golden, “but now there’s more maintenance.” About $19,000 in overtime was paid last year to three Board of Education employees who work on the HVAC system. The more bells and whistles a system has, the more that can go wrong with it.