Heating facility still on schedule
Steam releases from Utah State’s new heat facility have been successful and should be over by the first of next week, Darrel Hart, assistant vice president for facilities said.
The steam releases from the boilers of the facility have been necessary to remove scale from the piping but have been noisier than expected, Hart said. A sound containment unit has recently been designed and installed on the building’s roof to keep the noise levels of the steam releases down.
“It was a little noisier than we though. We have built a temporary muffling system to contain some of the noise, and it seems to be working well,” Hart said.
Once the facility is in full operation it should run quietly and the lengthy and noisy steam releases, which Hart called “a normal practice of construction,” should only occur if a major repair has to be made.
Despite the noise and a little lost time getting started due to some extra work that had to be done first on 700 N Hart feels that the project is going well and has thus far been successful.
“The overall project is going very well. The heating plant should be at full operation by the spring,” Hart said.
Work on the underground tunneling is also still on track. Similar steam releases need to be done on the underground piping as well but won’t be as lengthy. A steam release is scheduled for Monday January, 28 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the parking lot on the east side of the Vet Science building. Hart warns that it will be a noisy release so people should not be surprised. Construction of the tunneling should be done in the summer.
So far the heating plant has been awarded two safety awards from the state. An open house to celebrate the completion of the heating plant is tentatively scheduled for some time in May.