Still Raining Indoors at the Chavez Center

The Chavez Center won energy awards when it opened in 2000, but when I assessed it in 2001 I quickly realized it was a mess. Oversized pumps pushing against closed valves, electrically heated water being used to flush ice (shaved from the skating rink) down the drain, and the like. Worst of all, the heat removed from the skating rink (that's how you make water freeze) was being thrown away instead of used to heat the swimming pools! So when Phaedra Haywood wrote an article about a decade-long problem of humidity from the swimming pools dripping from the ceiling of the gymnasium, I just had to respond. Enjoy!

Dear Phaedra,

Thank you for your January 12 article in The New Mexican, “Water Torture,” which detailed the decade-long saga of indoor rain at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center. Unfortunately the good folks at the City didn’t tell the whole story.

While I was Technical Director for Rebuild New Mexico in 2001, I was asked to assess the energy performance of the Chavez Center. During the assessment, Troy Houtman, the Natatorium Manager, told me about the humidity migration problem that your article chronicles, and he told me at that time that in order to prevent it the natatorium needed to be kept at negative pressure relative to the rest of the building. So the problem was already well understood in March 2001 – six months before your timeline shows it first being identified.

I wrote a report based on my walk-through assessment and submitted it to Greg Neal, Director of the Chavez Center, in April 2001. I also gave a copy to the State Energy Office, which administered the Rebuild program in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy. My report included sixteen recommendations for improving the performance of the building, including several designed to reduce humidity inside the natatorium and one specifically calling for continuous measurement of the pressure differential between the natatorium and the rest of the building. I even recommended that an indicator or alarm be connected to the gauge so that the out-of-balance condition could be corrected each time it occurred, before rain would start to fall in the gymnasium.

My report was in the City’s hands long before the timeline in your article shows the problem first being identified. It described exactly how to address the problem, and if acted on at the time it would have quickly led to a permanent solution. The alarm on the pressure gauge would have highlighted the set of conditions creating the pressure imbalance, so that the ventilation system could then be adjusted to keep the imbalance from occurring.

This simple solution, if implemented, could have avoided the next eight years of paid consultants, threatening letters and negotiated settlements. And reading your article, it appears that the problem is still misunderstood. Why are we still talking about monitoring temperature and humidity when the problem arises from a pressure imbalance?

Maybe an interesting follow-up article could explore why the City didn’t consider my report, and whether they have any plans to look at it now. Beyond addressing the problem of water dripping from the gymnasium ceiling, the report contained fifteen additional recommendations for reducing energy consumption at Chavez. Back then the annual energy cost was $382,000 – what is it now, and what is the total cost of the failure to act?

This isn’t an isolated case, nor is it anywhere the worst example of costly ignorance on the part of the City. I have no idea what it would take to put an end to it, but it must stop – we simply cannot afford it any more.

Sincerely,
Mark Sardella, PE

Dear Phaedra,

Thank you for your January 12 article in The New Mexican, “Water Torture,” which detailed the decade-long saga of indoor rain at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center. Unfortunately the good folks at the City didn’t tell the whole story.

While I was Technical Director for Rebuild New Mexico in 2001, I was asked to assess the energy performance of the Chavez Center. During the assessment, Troy Houtman, the Natatorium Manager, told me about the humidity migration problem that your article chronicles, and he told me at that time that in order to prevent it the natatorium needed to be kept at negative pressure relative to the rest of the building. So the problem was already well understood in March 2001 – six months before your timeline shows it first being identified.

I wrote a report based on my walk-through assessment and submitted it to Greg Neal, Director of the Chavez Center, in April 2001. I also gave a copy to the State Energy Office, which administered the Rebuild program in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy. My report included sixteen recommendations for improving the performance of the building, including several designed to reduce humidity inside the natatorium and one specifically calling for continuous measurement of the pressure differential between the natatorium and the rest of the building. I even recommended that an indicator or alarm be connected to the gauge so that the out-of-balance condition could be corrected each time it occurred, before rain would start to fall in the gymnasium.

My report was in the City’s hands long before the timeline in your article shows the problem first being identified. It described exactly how to address the problem, and if acted on at the time it would have quickly led to a permanent solution. The alarm on the pressure gauge would have highlighted the set of conditions creating the pressure imbalance, so that the ventilation system could then be adjusted to keep the imbalance from occurring.

This simple solution, if implemented, could have avoided the next eight years of paid consultants, threatening letters and negotiated settlements. And reading your article, it appears that the problem is still misunderstood. Why are we still talking about monitoring temperature and humidity when the problem arises from a pressure imbalance?

Maybe an interesting follow-up article could explore why the City didn’t consider my report, and whether they have any plans to look at it now. Beyond addressing the problem of water dripping from the gymnasium ceiling, the report contained fifteen additional recommendations for reducing energy consumption at Chavez. Back then the annual energy cost was $382,000 – what is it now, and what is the total cost of the failure to act?

This isn’t an isolated case, nor is it anywhere the worst example of costly ignorance on the part of the City. I have no idea what it would take to put an end to it, but it must stop – we simply cannot afford it any more.

Sincerely,

Mark Sardella, PE