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Preventing Carbon Monoxide Leaks in School Heating Systems
The Importance of Regular Maintenance- Preventing Carbon Monoxide Hazards in School Heating Systems
BACKSTORY
A school in GTA had been running smoothly for years until they started experiencing issues with their rooftop package unit that provided comfortable heating for the 4-11 year old school gymnasium. The customer had been doing their own maintenance and inspection for years, only calling MeadowBrook for breakdown or emergency service. This approach worked fine until they started noticing a suspicious smell in and around the gymnasium that lingered over the course of a few days and was intermittent.
LOCATION
GTA
SECTOR
Institutional
MARKET
Education
COMPLETION
2023
CONTRACT TYPE
Preventative Maintenance
CHALLENGES AND PERCEIVED RISKS
The customer had been experiencing a suspicious smell in and around the school gymnasium, this smell lingered over the course of a few days and was intermittent. Thinking that this was a sewer gas smell the customer used their own combustible gas leak detector in hopes that this would help to resolve the issue. After coming up with no probable cause for the smell finally, the customer broke down and asked MeadowBrook to investigate.
WHAT DID WE DO
A fully equipped and licensed gas technician came to the site and quickly determined that the smell was indicative of poor burner combustion. The technician used a carbon monoxide detector in the affected area and found levels of CO that could potentially be harmful to children aged 4-11 if exposed for prolonged periods. The technician pinpointed the cause of the smell to the rooftop heating equipment that directly feeds air into the school gymnasium. Isolated the source of the carbon monoxide and restricted access to the affected space until the CO levels went down to zero. Investigated why this rooftop heating equipment was producing so much carbon monoxide the MeadowBrook technician found that a previous contractor installed a part into the rooftop unit that was not correctly installed, because of this the heat exchanger carbon up and cause the production of carbon monoxide. MeadowBrook Isolated the defective heating unit and provided supplementary heating to protect the space from freezing.
WHAT WAS THE OUTCOME
- A licensed and experienced technician should always have the expertise and tools to identify these problems before they become a
liability. - Each piece of equipment gets tested for proper combustion pre-heating season to identify problems early.
- Luckily there was no negative impact on the personal health of the occupants in the gymnasium when the CO event happened but there was
a 20k+ cost incurred for the repair and service call that should have been avoided if a curated PM was in place.
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