From outdated boilers and chillers to crows that won’t leave, Allen Community College trustees learned about some of the challenges in maintaining facilities during a tour Wednesday morning.
Ryan Sigg, maintenance director at Allen, led the tour, taking trustees through the main campus building as well as the activities and theater buildings. Sigg pointed to problem areas — such as pipes with condensation problems or aging infrastructure — and rooms crowded with machinery and storage.
Trustees recently approved building a new Career and Technical Education building and a new maintenance shop. Sigg took trustees through the multiple rooms and outdoor areas used by maintenance crews to explain how the new shop would allow his crew to be better organized and those areas to be modified. For example, a room used for maintenance offices, workshop and storage will become available for the athletics department. Coaches can use the space to store sports equipment that is now shoved into various crevices in the gymnasium.
John Masterson, who returned as interim president after retiring in 2022, accompanied trustees on the tour.
“The biggest mistake I made in 30 years was to paint the Red Barn,” Masterson joked as the group walked toward the activities building. Students are often confused because many staff and community members still call it the Red Barn, even though it was painted from its original red to gray several years ago.
The activities building is still in relatively good shape, Sigg noted. The HVAC system likely will need to be updated at some point.
The activities and the theater buildings have new roofs but the ceiling of the activities building will eventually need new insulation that can be covered, and new LED lights. Sigg would like to install LED lighting in all buildings for increased energy efficiency.
Masterson recalled when the floor was changed from concrete to a rubberized material, sometime in the 1990s. It’s held up well, he noted.
Allen attempted to save money when it built the theater building, Masterson said, but “we have put more money into this building than it originally cost.”
It’s also a framed metal structure and is subtly showing its age with spots of rust and condensation. Windows need to be replaced and it has limited storage room, Sigg said. The auditorium is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, although its seats and carpet were replaced in recent years.
MOST OF the tour focused on the main campus building, particularly the heating and cooling systems. Sigg took trustees inside mechanical rooms typically not seen by the public. He explained concerns with different aspects, such as insulation on pipes. A few pipes have an asbestos coating on the elbows.
“Any time you see condensation, it means the pipes are rusting on both the outside and inside. Water lines get thin over time,” he said.
He explained how a four-pipe heating and cooling system would be more efficient. With the current two-pipe system, the water that flows through is hot in the winter and cold in summer. A four-pipe system would allow different temperatures to flow at the same time.
He also talked about HVAC controls. The current system balances the temperature of several rooms together, so if one room is particularly warm, the system will make all the rooms colder to compensate. Sigg is currently working to switch to a different control system to alleviate those issues.
The gymnasium has new doors because of concerns raised by the fire marshal last year. A new concrete pad slopes gently up to the gym entrance. However, the new doors are set farther back, leaving a gap between the door threshold and gym floor. Sigg would like to address that at some point.
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