What does the Maintenance Department at your establishment of work mean to you? Are they simply the ones called when there’s a leaky faucet? Perhaps they are there for you […]
Facilities
Mechanical Musings at the Museum
A building engineer coming into the Center of the West would see very little by way of mechanical equipment that he wouldn’t recognize. True, there are some aspects of this […]
SEP-ARRA: Your Tax Dollars at Work
It was autumn of 2009, and the news was not good… The old steam boilers which provided heat and, indirectly, humidification for our 1967 building addition (the Whitney Museum, Buffalo […]
On Mechanical System Shutdown in Collection Storage Areas
Our chief conservator, Beverly Perkins, returned this week from the 42nd annual conference of the American Institute for Conservation held this year in San Francisco. She thought I might be […]
Air Compressor Efficiency Improvement: Facilites Compressor part 2
Our big Facilities air compressor has capacity control by way of what the manufacturer calls a poppet valve. As the compressor builds pressure to its setpoint, a regulator applies pressure on the […]
Air Cooled to Water Cooled Conversion: Facilities Air Compressor Part 1
In 2000 – 2002, the Center built its most recent additions to the building, the Facilities wing and the Draper Natural History Museum. As part of the design, engineers incorporated […]
