Broken air conditioners cause concern
WINDOW ROCK
As temperatures increase, concerns were brought up regarding Navajo Nation buildings that are currently without properly working air conditioning last Wednesday during the regular meeting for the Health, Education and Human Services Committee.
Marcus Tulley, Facilities Maintenance Department manager, said his department consists of 15 technicians who handle over 500 buildings across the Nation.
When the meeting was held, there were six buildings that were in need of new HVAC systems.
“What we’re doing now is addressing a lot of those concerns, a lot of those issues,” he said. “We try to provide some training in terms of the HVAC system.”
The training provided to employees is to keep the buildings at a certain temperature due to the risk of freezing the system.
“If you start moving it (the temperature) down five degrees colder then it starts to have the HVAC units working harder,” Tulley said. “So pretty soon, it’s pumping all of this Freon and the system is not made for that. It’s pushing all of this Freon and it freezes up the pipe and then the unit shuts down.”
As of last Wednesday, the department was working on a contract for building assessments which will determine which are still usable and which are not. This also includes evaluating heating and cooling systems.
Parts needed for these systems are becoming harder to find, according to Tulley.
These parts are not available in places like Gallup, Flagstaff or Farmington so they need to be ordered from elsewhere.
“A lot of the inside infrastructure of those buildings are obsolete and parts are beginning to be harder to find,” Tulley said.
When the department receives a call about a cooling system not working, Tulley said they try to fix the situation. He also said they are working to replace HVAC systems but this year they are in “dire need” of heating and cooling systems.
Attempts were made to advertise for a contractor to replace HVACs but were not successful so the department went to contractors individually and none were interested.
“One of the reasons why they’re not interested is that they’re saying now is that it’s taking six months to get new units,” Tulley said. “It takes them a while to find parts and we don’t want to be liable because there’s time limits to these contracts that we propose that we advertise.”
Despite the road bumps the department has run into, it continues to handle things in-house.
Tulley said there is an individual that is certified to handle Freon, so the department refilled the Admin One and Two buildings.
For some of the systems, the department was unable to fix the problems in-house and has concluded that full, new HVAC systems will be needed.
The cost was brought up during the meeting and Tulley said the estimated cost of a three-ton HVAC unit would be around $5,000 to $7,000 depending on the brand, and $2,700 for labor to install a single unit, and about $21,000 for delivery.
A joint meeting between HEHSC and the Department of Facilities was suggested but no date was set.
Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow