On Wednesday, February 13th, 2013, representatives of the Town met with contractors involvd in the construction of the library concerning the ongoing problems at the Greenburgh Public Library. Below is a summary of the problems encountered and a plan for moving forward and addressing those problems.
1.
The Library has been having ongoing problems with its mechanical systems, including: repeated compressor failures in the heat pump units; inadequate heating and cooling in certain areas, overheating in the swoop area; a recent sprinkler system failure from a broken sprinkler pipe when the heat pump unit serving the children’s library was down and water leaks in the roof at the skylight.
2.
There have also been reported low water temperatures from the well water system possibly causing wear on the compressors in the units
3.
There were faulty compressors from initial Library installation; and
4.
A hole was found in the building envelope at the intersection of where the roof meets the wall.
The Town retained a third party engineer to perform a review of the building systems and operational issues and their findings were discussed by attendees at the February 13th, 2013 meeting.
The Town and contractors resolved to take the following course of action to address the issues:
- Have the responsible party repair the hole found in the building envelope at the intersection of where the roof meets the wall.
- The Town will contact the controls service contractor to get trending information of the well water temperatures.
- The engineering contractor will provide the load calculations for the building and lead the response to the questions concerning the design related issues, specifically whether the units have sufficient capacity rating; whether the well water circulation pumps flow rate adequately; review the annual loads on the well field in cooling mode versus heating mode.
- The Town will compile the history of unit failures and service maintenance.
- The HVAC contractor will provide copies of the balancing reports issued at project close-out.
- The architect will inspect the length of the roof-wall intersection where there were reports of air infiltration into the building.
A follow-up meeting date is scheduled for Wednesday, March 13th, 2013 at GPL to report on all of the above.
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Just got home -visited my in laws in Florida. This morning I was bicycling around downtown Lake Worth -Lake and Lucerne Avenue. They had an interesting street painting festival that I hope will be considered in Greenburgh/the river villages and around Westchester. The downtown streets are closed and artists are invited to paint the street with chalk. Hundreds of people participated. It's an opportunity to celebrate the arts, promote interest in downtown communities, help local merchants and highlight the best a community has to offer. The drawings are not permanent. It can complement the farmer's market and some of the street fairs we all enjoy.
_ PAUL FEINER
