Top Stories
Reading Break provides great opportunity for preventive maintenance on the Chem C fume hoods
Last week was Reading Break and we planned to make use of this downtime to get in and refurbish the fume hoods in the Chemistry C wing teaching labs. Thanks to all for this proactive work.
One of our biggest challenges with preventive maintenance is that faculty and staff really like to use their spaces—teaching labs are in very high demand and play a critical part in creating those opportunities for students to learn.
By planning ahead and taking advantage of natural downtimes for our key campus equipment we can continue to enable great teaching and research to happen on this campus.
Tree Map to be posted in USB North Atrium to show how EAOS is working and how you can get involved
In the coming weeks, EAOS team members will be coming to shop talks to update you on the EAOS Program. We know it can be challenging to follow progress with EAOS so to help with this we’ve developed the EAOS Tree—a map illustrating EAOS goals and our progress towards each one. The map also shows who is working on EAOS and how you can get involved.
At shop talks, EAOS team members will introduce the tree map and how to read it.
The Tree map here is too small to read. We invite all staff to check it out in the USB North Atrium where it will be posted this week, or read more online here.
BOLD team to grow in response to work load but planning a job still means planning your labour support too
Often teams believe that more staff would solve all their problems but often a lot can be done by prioritizing, planning and scheduling effectively and efficiently.
The Building Operations Labour Division (BOLD) shop has done a remarkable job evolving their resource planning and scheduling efforts over the past 2 years so that they’re optimized to tackle projects in a timely fashion. Now that they’ve proven their efficiency we clearly see that this team needs more resources. Two new labourers are being added to the team.
However, this doesn’t mean that they can drop everything and support your job without proper notice.
Keep in mind:
- Any work that needs a labourer for more than 2 days must be put onto the main schedule through Jeff Smith.
- Planned work should always be accompanied with a SR to BOLD (you can always create a related request if you want to keep the original in your inbox).
- If there is an emergency situation that requires assistance of labourers, please submit an “urgent” SR via the service centre and with a follow up phone call to the Head of the BOLD team.
Lower Mall closures and slow traffic due to DES projects
Construction along Lower Mall has started (to install underground hot water pipes as part of UBC’s Academic DES) and is expected to be completed by end of May 2017. During this time, there will be some noise and vibration. Commuters along Lower Mall may experience some delays, however, all sidewalks will remain open.
In the next two weeks, there’ll be work completed along Lower Mall between University Boulevard and the West Parkade.
- Access from University Boulevard to the south side of Lower Mall will be restricted.
- Access to the West Parkade will be from Lower Mall via Agronomy Road.
Please contact FM James Bellavance (604-822-4116) or PM Steve Ahluwalia (604-828-3659) if you have any questions or concerns.
Building Zone Changes take effect March 1st and impact Teal, Yellow, Brown, Green and Orange zones
There are some minor changes in the zones in order to align faculties and distribute floor space/complexity, remove duplication and re-balance the zones. These changes have been reviewed by the zone sub-committee and the effected trades.
Changes take effect on Wednesday, March 1st and impact the following zones: Teal, Yellow, Brown, Green and Orange. (Zones that are not impacted by any changes are Red, Blue and Grey.)
| Buildings moving to: | Removed from: |
| Teal – move Clock Tower into Teal | Orange Zone |
| Teal – move Berwick into Teal | Green Zone |
| Yellow – move CK Choi, International House, Lui Institute, Sing Tao into Yellow | Brown Zone |
| Brown – move SPPH into Brown | Green Zone |
Extra-large zone lists will be printed and distributed. Up-to-date zone list are available on the shared drive: S:\LBS\Common\Building Ops\Zones.
Raise the bollards every time you drive through a pedestrian area
Need to get into a pedestrian area to complete your work? Then you must:
- Plan a route that limits your driving time within the pedestrian zone
- Drive with extra caution and avoid class change times
- Always raise the bollard behind you – even if you are only going to be a few minutes
No exceptions, no excuses. Keep our pedestrian zones safe and set a great example for our campus users.
A Few Faulty Heat Exchangers create hot water with high Nitrites
You may have read in this weekend’s Vancouver Sun and Province or heard at work that we’re working hard to replace failed heat exchange units. The safety of students, faculty and staff is paramount in everything we do and ensuring water in our buildings meet Health Canada standards is something we work very closely with Energy & Water to accomplish. The University has hired experts to help understand the root causes of these unusual failures.
What happened? A heat exchanger that supplies domestic hot water to the Friedman addition/JBM buildings was found in late January to have failed internally allowing chemically treated water from the district hot water loop into the building’s hot water supply. This particular heat exchanger was less than a year old and failed in a way that is highly unusual as the separated double walled system is engineered to prevent transmission of water from one side to the other.
This realization caused Energy &Water and Building Ops team to quickly review the 80 other similar units on campus. Three other failed units were discovered (in Sherwood Lett, Robson House and Scarfe). The Scarfe water quality tests showed the concentrations of Nitrite were below Health Canada guidelines but the two housing locations had exceeded.
In every instance upon discovery the water was quickly shut down and the heat exchanger replaced. After repair, subsequent water quality testing showed no detection of Nitrite. In every situation only the building’s hot water was effected.
RMS notified residents in these buildings and helped answer questions or concerns from these students.