Last Updated on 5 years by Christopher G Mendla
My office was above our plant engineers. One day I was freezing my rear off. We had a huge HVAC system which SHOULD have kept us comfortable. When I went downstairs I saw the problem immediately.
I worked as a web developer for a manufacturing company. Our office was in the middle of the plant above the engineers office. The process threw a lot of heat during the summer and the plant was extremely cold at times during the winter. There was a 90 thousand BTU unit servicing our offices.
Both floors were about 50 x 50′ or so. i.e. not very large. The lower floor housed our group of plant engineers. The mechanical geniuses who kept the machinery running.
One winter’s day, I was by myself. The temperature in my office kept dropping. It wasn’t unusual to come in and find the temperature between 50 and 55. During this particular day, it wasn’t rising. I could feel COLD air coming through the ducts.
I went downstairs to see what was going on. Look at the picture. The ENGINEERS were cold, so they set up a 1000 watt space heater WHICH HAPPENED TO BE AIMED AT THE THERMOSTAT. I tried to tell them what that was doing but they just didn’t get it.
The heat from the space heater was causing the thermostat to think that the room was about 90 degrees or more. Not being intelligent, the thermostat called for the HVAC system to put out it’s full cooling potential. In other words, the space heater was adding 3000 BTUS of heat to the office while the thermostat was dumping 90 THOUSAND BTUS of Cooling into the office. Guess who was winning that one.
The grudgingly agreed to shut it off. They could have relocated it but they never quite grasped the concept. Apparently they went to the VP and complained that I was being an asshole.
