OT: CRAC

[Jon maddog Hall]

>Since we are on AC war stories.

Now you have done it. :-)

When I was at Hartford State Technical College we had a REALLY LARGE air
conditioner that was supposed to both heat and cool the computer room.

When I got to the school (the bulk of which was not air conditioned), I
suffered through really cold winters (the students would wear mittens to type)
and really hot summers (we would open the windows to cool the room), but the
machine pumped out "air".

Finally I confronted the custodial department and told them that a machine that
size should make the room an icicle in less than twenty minutes, and that I
did not think the thermostats were working.  The head custodian told me that
the reason the room was hot was that it was summer outside, and that the
air conditioner could not work against that.

I finally went to the Dean of Instruction (my boss) and complained that the
custodial staff were idiots, and that I wanted an independent contractor to
come in and look at the air conditioning unit.  I told him that there was no
way that air conditioner could not turn that room into an ice cube inside of
ten minutes if it was working properly.

The contractor found:

o All the thermostats in the school, operating on a vacuum system, had rotten
hoses, leaked air, and therefore did not work.  This meant that the school
never had heat, much less our room have air conditioning

o Both vacuum generators for the thermostats had frozen up long ago from lack
of oil and maintenance.

o The master compressor for the air conditioner had frozen in much
the same way, with the other, smaller "auxilerary" compressor was just limping
along

We repaired all of the hoses, the compressors, etc. and from that day on the
room was EXACTLY 70 degrees.  Not 69.5, not 71.5.  EXACTLY 70 degrees.

And in the rest of the school, for the first time in everyone's memory, the
students could actually take off their coats in the classroom during the
winter.

So much for head custodians.

Carpe Diem!

md

P.S. I will not even start on the story about the day that our IBM water-cooled
system sprung a leak....
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director           Linux International(R)
email: maddog at li.org         80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557       Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association

(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant
   to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus
   Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
   countries.