My building wants to explode

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch) 04/27/2020 at 16:00 • Filed to: None

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So the AC kicked on in the building Im working in...then a whistle starts and gets louder and louder. Sometimes because of the shape of the building the wind creates a vacuum on one side of the building but this is going on everywhere. The doors blew open near me and I literally couldn’t shut them. When I shut one (double doors with center bar) it would open the other. It was forcing the bar over. Still wh istling like mad and its not that windy

TheRealBicycleBuck > HammerheadFistpunch 04/27/2020 at 16:03

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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > HammerheadFistpunch 04/27/2020 at 16:54

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Reminds of something one of my profs mentioned back in college. There are two major engineering buildings relatively close to one another at GT , the MRDC and the Manufacturing Institute.

As he told it, that roughly 50ft gap between the two was originally to be smaller - the Manufacturing Institute had been more or less sited and all planned out, when somebody thought to run a wind analysis. There is a hill between the two, making the effective height of the two buildings something like 30 ft on either side of that lane at the top and with a 20ft increase as you go down it going north ... more or less at the end of a wind corridor to the north, and making a continuous wall vs. wind from the south.

He said the wind analysis said there were going to be 60-7 0mph+ gusts, at the top of a set of stairs...

The position of Manufacturing was rethought. Doors popping open would’ve been nothing to a couple of “Wendy, I can fly!” lawsuits.

RacinBob > HammerheadFistpunch 04/27/2020 at 17:06

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I bet it is nothing that dramatic. Is it like 50 degrees outside and a sunny day? If yes, that roodtop airconditioner (or indoor airhandlers) is running on outside air economizer , that is it is pulling in 100% outside air for cooling. Now the system should have exhaust fans to pull the air back out of the building. You need exhaust system because you cannot blow air into a closed box.

Either a) it was a bad design and whomever built the building didn’t spend money on an exhaust system for the rooftop unit, or b) they did but the fan belt broke or C) the fan is working but the damper to let the air of the unit out broke.  I’ve seen buildings with problems B or C that have run that way for years. 

All three are possibilities. It will always be the worst on the days that are sunny and yet the air is cold enough to do cooling. Bottom line, building pressurzation problems happen when you try to blow air into a box and it can’t escape through the intended ways.

HammerheadFistpunch > RacinBob 04/27/2020 at 17:27

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It was a dramatic effect. We opened a door at the end of a hallway to relieve the pressure and I bet I could have flown a kite in that hallway. no other doors open. My guess is B  and or C.  Its a brand new building but something was definitely funky

RacinBob > HammerheadFistpunch 04/27/2020 at 18:59

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I’d talk to the building owner, or their maint rep and suggest the look into it. The only way it will get better is when the outside air is warm enough that the economizer no longer is functional.

HammerheadFistpunch > RacinBob 04/27/2020 at 19:00

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They had a crew working when I left.