Classroom TherMOOstat Stories
This is how we use your TherMOOstat feedback to improve classroom comfort.
Hot Feedback Identifies Issue with Refrigerant in Haring Hall
A heat pump is a piece of mechanical equipment that runs on a refrigerant. The refrigerant changes pressure and temperature the effect either heats or cools the room. Without the refrigerant, the heat pump won't work and a room will feel too hot or too cold.
In May there was a surge of TherMOOstat feedback from students in classroom Haring 1227. In one day, we received 3 warm and 10 hot submissions! As we were investigating, we receive another 2 warm votes and 6 hot submissions came in.
It's always too warm in here for this 2-4pm lecture on Tuesday and Thursday,
A Facilities HVAC technician went to the room and found the source of the issue was the heat pump on the roof that was low on refrigerant. In the heat pump, there is an evaporator that boils the refrigerant. As the refrigerant evaporates, it causes a cooling effect in the room. Without enough refrigerant, the heat pump didn't cool the room.
Cold Feedback Identifies Competing Thermostats in King Hall
In September, we received 1 chilly and 12 cold submissions from TherMOOstat in room 1001 in King Hall. The following month we receive another 12 cold submissions. The consistent cold feedback suggested there may be an issue with the cooling controls to room 1001.
When we went to investigate, we discovered two issues that caused the uncomfortably cold temperature. The first issue was that one VAV box was trying to cool the room while a second was trying to heat the room. We reset the VAV boxes so they would communicate, instead of competing against one another. After we changed the programming to enable the thermostats, we went to the room to manually change the setpoints to 70°F.
Cold Feedback Identifies Issue with Hot Water Pump in Rock Hall
Rock Hall is a large lecture auditorium that can host over 200 students at once. We don't receive a lot of feedback from Rock Hall compared to the rest of the classroom spaces on campus. On January 12, we received feedback reporting abnormally cold temperature. Although our system didn't report any alerts of mechanical failure, the comments prompted us to dig a little deeper.
It feels like we're on
an Arctic Tundra.
The setpoint for Rock Hall room 194 is typically at 75°F, but the actual temperature ranged from 56 to 68°F. This influx of responses and the significantly low recorded room temperature kicked off our investigation. We found a heating hot water pump malfunctioning, which meant the air supplied to the room wasn't being heated but in fact, remained cool. Our team alerted a Facilities HVAC technician, who checked on the issue and it was resolved quickly.
Hot Feedback Identifies Issue with Temp. Sensors in Academic Surge
On September 28th, our team received 30 hot and warm TherMOOstat submissions in a 15 minute period! When we investigated the issue, we found the room temperature sensors failing were telling the HVAC system that the room was 38°F when it was actually 78°F.
I walked here for 10 minutes. It's hot in here! Especially because there are 40 people in this small room. It feels really stuffy.
Since the HVAC system was being told the room was very cold, the VAVs were supplying heat into the room.To quickly address the issue, we told the HVAC system to supply 55°F air to the room so the VAVs would stop heating the room and the room would cool down.
Hot Feedback Identifies Airflow Issues in Olson Hall
In January, TherMOOstat feedback became consistently hot and warm. In March, we received 14 warm and hot TherMOOstat submissions, and in April we received 25 warm and hot submissions! In late April, we discovered an airflow issue. The source was the four VAV boxes in the room that were not communicating properly and were working against each other.
When there's more than one VAV for a room, there should be one of them assigned as the "parent" VAV. The "parent" should tell the other "children" VAV boxes what to do. We found that this wasn't happening in room 6. We reprogrammed the boxes to restore communication and fix the issue. The resulting May feedback consisted of only two votes, so we knew things had improved.
Related Articles
How TherMOOstat Helps With Cooling Controls
Consistent chilly and cold votes from a room in King Hall told us there may be an issue with the cooling controls. We take a closer look and noticed 2 major issues.