Building Operations Weekly

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Emergency Exercise on Agronomy Road & Orchard Commons this Wednesday, June 28 from 8AM -2PM

On Wednesday, June 28 at 8:00am to 2:00pm UBC Vancouver is conducting an emergency exercise on Agronomy Road between Main Mall and West Mall with parts of the exercise taking place at Orchard Commons.

As Building Operations is a key member of the University’s Emergency Response, we will have FM Francois sitting in the EOC as Operations Section Chief and other key resources — like Richard Hugli, Chris Freek, John Scare, and others — participating as well.

You will not be asked to participate in the response but, if that changes in the moment, the request will come in via typical channels so just attend as you would any other emergency we have on campus and play along with the scenario unfolding.

  • The scenario is: A half marathon is in progress on campus with 4,000 runners in attendance. During the marathon, a delivery truck is stolen and driven into the event area, running down marathon participants.
  • This exercise will seem realistic: large crowds of people, some acting emotionally distressed and/or with mocked physical injuries. First Responders will be working together to triage the causalities.

This exercise prepares UBC for an emergency that requires a mass emergency response—not only for a rundown emergency but also earthquakes, collapsing buildings, chemical explosions, etc.


Life Sciences Centre Loading Area Closed on June 30th

The 2-week noise work window for the Life Sciences Centre is in effect now and will end on June 30. Please note that we will be expecting the delivery of the new back-up generator on Friday, June 30, and will require the loading area to be closed from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. (12 hours) to receive and set-up the new back-up generator.

During this time, the loading area on the north side of the Life Science Centre will not be available for shipping or deliveries. A temporary loading area will be set-up on the south side of the building, next to the entrance of Perugia Café. Refer to the map for the delivery route of the generator to LSC.

Please contact FM Deborah Capps at 604 822 0072 if you have questions or concerns.


Flood in Brimacombe Basement – a reality of FCI of 0.30

We have spent 2 years creating programs, developing processes and hiring additional staff to help us move from reactive to proactive however we are still experiencing and are going to experience preventable failures due to the current state of Facility Condition Index (FCI) on our campus.

Our campus’ FCI is currently 0.30, which means that almost 1/3 of the equipment and building systems on campus are within 5 years of end of life. That means thousands of pieces of equipment are in the window of failing.

As we implement EAOS, heads, managers and technical specialist teams will prioritize our PM programs to reduce the consequence of unexpected failures. Currently there is great work advancing electrical PMs during feeder shutdowns—and now mechanical systems are also being included. This is smart planning being put forward by these teams.

Still sometimes things don’t go our way, and a part fails. We are proud of how quickly our crews respond, manage the repairs and mitigate the damage.

June 7th we received a call from a contractor working in the Brimacombe building basement that there was flooding in the mechanical room. Custodial was on the scene quickly to clean up the water. Plumbers and Steamfitters were dispatched to find a perished coupling on the heating water pump. The pump was isolated and the coupling has been replaced but in the meantime, water sprayed over all the electrical panels on the modular chiller which is part of the thermenex system (cooling chiller system). Our Electrical and Refrigeration crews were on site to isolate the power, however, it meant the building was without cooling until the following morning. Great response helped minimize the impact of this failure.


Sunshine and smiles at the Building Ops Golf Tournament last weekend

Another successful golf tournament this past Saturday with equally good weather. Thank you to John Singh, Dan Myers, Paul Tees and Joe Gallagher for your dedicated work in bringing this event to life this year.


Quick Updates


NPS score increase 1 point to 81% with 4 new promoters.


Leaving UBC: Dan Murphy and Werner Biste


Call 2-4444 for First Aid assistance


RESEARCH NOISE WINDOW AT PHARMACY AND LSC JUNE 19 – 30