Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1900 [PAGE 46]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

26

UNIVERSITY O F I L L I N O I S .

Dec.

VS.

To the President and Board of Trustees, University of Illinois. GENTLEMEN: In accordance with your order, communicated on October 10, 1898, by your Secretary, we have carefully examined the condition of the walls and the heating and ventilation of Library Hall, and beg leave topresent the following report and recommendations. The stains on inside basement walls appear to be due to three causes: 1. The moisture remaining in the thick masonry walls after construction slowly evaporated inside the building, producing no serious difficulty until the fan stopped running in the spring and during the summer, when the stains began to appear, as the moisture was not removed with sufficient rapidity. 2. The outside ground drains of 5-inch tiles were recently taken up and found to be out of line and stopped in some places, thus obstructing the removal of ground water. These have been relaid with 8-inch tiles, above which the 5-inch tiles have been replaced, so that the ground will be well drained hereafter. The sewer pipe joining the conductor on south side of west wing was found to be disconnected, perhaps by some excavations made since the completion of the building. This has been remedied. 3. The excessive rainfall during the past spring and summer saturated the ground outside the building, preventing external evaporation of moisture remaining in the walls. If the fan be run constantly while Library Hall is in use, and at frequent intervals during the vacations, the structural dampness remaining in the walls will in time be removed. We recommend that the stained walls in basement be furred out about 1% inches from the present surface of the plastering, from the floor to the tops of the window sills, covered with wire lathing, and plastered with two coats of hard mortar, finished with oak cap at window sills, and with a base run in hard mortar and Portland cement next the stone floor; to give the stained walls above basement ample time to dry out thoroughly and then to wash, tint, and decorate them to match as may be required. Most of those spots will probably disappear without leaving any obtrusive stains. Any defective heating or ventilation of the building is due to two causes: 1. The Powers Kegulating Company put in an air compressor, driven by a steam cylinder, to supply compressed air for actuating the apparatus, which the thermostats in the different rooms merely serve to control. This compressed air moved the mixing dampers in the air ducts, in order to change the temperature of the air supplied to the different rooms. This compressor was run by steam taken from the pipe supplying the steam engine by which the fan was driven, and this steam was supplied at a pressure of from 15 to 20 pounds per square inch. This steam engine was taken out during the past summer and replaced by an electric moter, so that steam has since been supplied to Library Hall for heating purposes only, and at a pressure of but a few pounds per square inch, not sufficient to run the air compressor, which has therefore not been used, so that it was impossible for the temperature regulating apparatus to act. Some complaints have been made in regard to the overheating of rooms, and the fixed dampers in the pipes have been used to control the supply of air to some rooms. Pulleys were also placed on the motor and countershafts, reducing the speed of the fan from about 150 revolutions per minute, as intended by the contractors for the heating and ventilating apparatus, to 75 revolutions, so that probably about two-thirds as much air has been supplied for ventilating purposes as' was required by the architects and intended by the contractors. But we have heard no complaints of insufficient ventilation, only of excess of heat in some cases. To obviate this difficulty Professor Breckenridge will submit a plan for piping compressed air to the Chemical, Natural History, Engineering, and Library Halls from an air compressor already ordered, which is to be located in Engineering Laboratory. This will supply air to about 80 pounds pressure to the square inch, and this pipe can be directly connected to the air ppies in