As temperatures drop, students hope to have a warm place to learn. However, that’s not always been the case at Park High. In the past, people have complained about being cold, but this year, things seem to be turning around.
For the past couple of years, science teacher Natalie Davis’s classroom has typically been freezing, but this year it has seemed to warm up significantly. “My room is usually freezing in here and I think it’s because of my windows. The bottom of my windows are not sealed so I think a lot of the cold air gets in that way,” Davis said.
However, there are still some rooms in the building that are staying pretty cold and there are even some without any heat. “In my office, there is no heat, so it is freezing in there,” Davis said.
In the years past, students in Davis’s classroom have asked to grab their coats, but this year a lot fewer students have been asking her to grab one. “I have even taught in gloves and a jacket before. To try to keep things warm though, I have a personal heater,” Davis said. So far Davis has not had to use the heater due to her classroom being warmer.
Talking to the Director of Maintenance Kerwin Klumpers about the temperatures in Park High and some of the challenges he faces with keeping the temperature up, he explained that they don’t only depend on the thermostat but also on how many people are in the room. “The number of occupants in the room has at least a twofold effect on room temperature. The first being the more people in a room the more body heat you have which can raise the room temperature above the set point on a given thermostat. The second being the more people in a room the more CO2 is released. This causes the program to open an actuator that lets in fresh air which may lower the room temperature. Another complication is proximity to doors and windows, especially when they are left open on a cold or windy day,” Klumpers said.
“Another variable that we cannot control is the individual,” Klumpers explained. “If a person has just finished PE and has just finished exercising they are going to feel warmer than a person who is sleepy. As you can see there are a lot of variables to try and keep a building the size of Park High School heated, and this is assuming the mechanical and electrical components are working as designed.”