Posted on 01/19/2023 8:11:27 AM PST by grundle
WILBRAHAM, Mass. — For nearly a year and a half, a Massachusetts high school has been lit up around the clock because the district can’t turn off the roughly 7,000 lights in the sprawling building.
The lighting system was installed at Minnechaug Regional High School when it was built over a decade ago and was intended to save money and energy. But ever since the software that runs it failed on Aug. 24, 2021, the lights in the Springfield suburbs school have been on continuously, costing taxpayers a small fortune.
“We are very much aware this is costing taxpayers a significant amount of money,” Aaron Osborne, the assistant superintendent of finance at the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District, told NBC News. “And we have been doing everything we can to get this problem solved.”
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
There is a lot of infrastructure in similar straights.
I wonder.....My local Walmart has been cold in the winter for years. So cold I have to keep my winter coat on and zipped up. When the weather turned cold late last year, the temp in Walmart stayed warm enough that I had to undo my coat. It still remains warm.
Was the local manager given control of the thermostat? Did the people at corporate HQ finally figure out that cold stores was bad for business?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Nobody wants to be responsible for ALSO turning off the heating system, security system, phone system, etc. Who knows how the damn building was wired?
Wilbraham is an example of a town run by a committee.
I am sure there are electrical contractors in town who have told them how to fix this…but the school district management knows better.
Bunch of fools.
Better yet get the guys from NC college that designed their highways. They would never come on!
I don’t know how it is in schools or industrial buildings, but in homes, by code (in Massachusetts) lighting and outlets cannot be on the same breaker. School janitors may not be allowed at the electrical panel, that might require a licensed (and since it’s a school) master electrician. They won’t work for less than about $100/HR, so it might be cheaper to just leave the lights on than have someone switch them on and off via the panel. I dunno.
I does seem crazy.
“The average school janitor has 100 times more common sense than the average school administrator.”
But aren’t the janitors in charge of the lights?
"Well, I'll just turn off these circuit breakers."
"I'm sorry, Dave. I can't let you do that."
Hospital administrators aren’t any better.
The only thing administrators are good at is signing checks.
Complex systems have more ways to fail, are harder to diagnose and fix.
Simple is usually more resilient.
Was the local manager given control of the thermostat?
I know the local electricain.
Either the circuit breaker or give me an air rifle and a six pack. Problem solved.
And these idiots are running a “place of education.”
I’ll bet that I can get them off.
My mom was an elementary school teacher in that town for 25 years. She retired years ago. But even then the frustration with the folks in charge were mounting.
It was a nice town. But over the years they seem to have lost the “old New England small town common sense.”
Do these people know what a light switch is?
I have a pretty good idea of what they were using.
The software had a program that turned the lights on and off with the schedule. So they would turn on when teachers or staff arrived, and off at the end of the day.
These systems DO NOT have a manual override. That was a selling point to save costs. Less wiring, more control, etc.
So there is probably only the breakers to turn the lights off. Breakers that might turn off more than the lights.
Again, to save money I bet the lighting circuits were added into the wall plugs. Turn off the lights, and the computers and fridges go down.
I would bet it is more than “They don’t know how to program it”. More than likely the PLC failed, and now they only way they have to turn the lights off and on is to depower the whole panel.
I have seen this very thing. It cost a LOT to get resolved.
Automation kids, ain’t it grand.
No. What happened is a school administrator told the software that math is racist, so the software had to quit using math.
Didn’t they think to contact MIT?
Sounds about right.
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