The Student News Site of Lake Central High School

Lake Central News

The Student News Site of Lake Central High School

Lake Central News

The Student News Site of Lake Central High School

Lake Central News

The cold, hard facts

This+is+a+Daikin+unit%2C+and+it+controls+the+temperature+of+the+room+it+is+installed+in.++These+units+were+installed+in+the+new+academic+wing.+
This is a Daikin unit, and it controls the temperature of the room it is installed in. These units were installed in the new academic wing.

Year round, students can be found speculating why Lake Central is so cold. The notion that the school is too cold is not unfamiliar to Lake Central students, but instead, it is public knowledge, that some have openly and publically addressed. Although whether an area is too cold or not can be a subjective observation, there are technological reasons that account for some areas of the school being colder than others, as well as reasons that explain why certain areas get to temperatures that are considered uncomfortable for students to be in. For the most part, the temperature of the school is primarily determined by the location that is being considered, because different locations have different systems.

“One of the biggest challenges is that we have different systems,” Mr. Layman, Maintenance, said. He works with the heating, ventilation and air conditioning of the school. “We have an old antiquated system, which controls the north and the south cafeteria, we have a more up-to-date system, which controls [some of] the freshmen center and we have our most recent one that was just put in with the last remodeling of the academic center and the whole new building.”

This explains why the academic wing has the most evenly regulated temperature in the school, and there are generally the least problems with it. The new system in the academic center is currently controlled partially by teachers, so they can have a margin of temperatures to which they can set their rooms. Online Casino har de senere årene blitt meget populært fremfor å gå til et tradisjonelt casino online.

“In the newer system, we have much more control. We can limit the temperature range that the teachers can set it to. We have set limits between 70 to 74 degrees. They really can’t make it hotter than 74, and they can’t make it colder than 70,” Mr. Layman said.

However, the areas with older systems do not come with this much control. These areas include some of the freshmen center and the two cafeterias. The difficulty to control the temperatures within these areas can cause undesirable temperatures that are harder to regulate. However, because they can be adjusted manually to some extent, if classrooms in this area are cold, it is because the teachers who occupy them prefer that temperature.

“In the old system, if they do have controls, [which] certain rooms do, [teachers] always request it and try to make it colder there,” Mr. Layman said. “If it’s consistently cold in the room, and if teachers have an issue with it, they will call us [to change it].”

Controlling the old system presents more technical and manual difficulties, which leads to difficulty in keeping the school at a comfortable temperature.

“The south cafeteria really is the worst because we don’t have control other than manually opening and closing the water valves. The old system does have control, but it’s very labor intensive for us. We are in the process of bringing in a company that’s going to give us a more up to date, computerized system that we can control a lot easier,” Mr. Layman said.

The other factors that contribute to cooling down the school are mainly technical difficulties. A problem like this occurs with the ventilation of fresh air. Engineering and health standards require that fresh air be ventilated into the school, but the air can often come in cold and decrease indoor temperatures.

“By code we have to have an exchange of fresh air every so often, but that comes in pretty cold,” Mr. Sean Begley, Head Principal, said.

In the academic center with the newer air conditioning system, the thermostats that detect the temperature can be the cause of an issue if they are not reading the temperature correctly.

“If you put a computer or something that lets up heat [underneath the thermostat], and it heats it up, it’s going to make it colder in the room [to compensate],” Mr. Layman said.  

Whenever issues do arise and the school is colder than it is supposed to be, the staff can be trusted to solve the problems.

“When you start getting down to 66 to 64, you’re getting cold. My first line [of advice] would be to give us a call, let us know what room it is. Teachers do call us, and they’ll tell us if it’s too hot or too cold in the room. If it’s too cold in the hallways, let one of the principals in the main office know,” Mr. Layman said .

Ultimately, the school does work and put effort into ensuring that the facility and students is a comfortable temperature for everyone who attends it; the faculty does their best to ensure that it is not too hot or too cold.

“We’re not sitting down here in the office and saying ‘Hey, let’s freeze the students out.’ Obviously we want it to be comfortable. We want kids to come here and be focused on their academics and not be shivering,” Mr. Begley said.

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