(Springfield, IL) Talk about hot! The Lincoln Library, opened just 2 years ago [see update], had to go without air conditioning for almost a month. The system was out of order and all they had for ventilation were fans. “Sweltering temperatures” is how the Journal-Register described it. Since Monday, the Air has been back on but, as Library Director Nancy Huntley puts it, “it takes a long time for a building of this kind to cool.” [Wetterich, Chris. “Library Air Conditioning Kicks Back In“, Springfield Journal Register: 7/10/2007 2:14:55 PM]
UPDATE: imiller explains that the air conditioning problem happened at the Public Library called “Lincoln Library” and not the 2-year-old Presidential Library of the same name.
No respect
A building two years old had electrical problems that made the a/c stop working for a month? If that had been an office building there would have been electricians crawling out of the closets and a/c repairmen working around the clock to avoid the lawsuit for breach of warranty.
Please a two year old building and no one had the stones to sue them after the third day. Contractors, electricians, architects, engineers, they all have insurance that will cover their errors and to suggest that dicking around for a month was appropriate is laughable.
Someone is accepting the song and dance the contractors gave them rather than living in the real world.
A performance bond that ran concurrent with the warranty is standard, someone who has no idea how to negotiate commercial construction should have supervised the project and a lawyer should have vetted the agreements to see that they were compliant with contemporary commercial standards. File a notice that you are claiming against the bond and see how quickly people get problems resolved. It would have been nice and cool the next day.
But as we all well know ‘good enough’ is frequently acceptable for anything library related.
Re:No respect
The Lincoln Library in the story is not the same as the 2 year old Lincoln Presidential Library. Lincoln Library is the name of the public library in Springfield — website is http://www.lincolnlibrary.info/llhome5.htm. (Don’t know how old the building is, but it’s definitely not new.) Yes, it’s confusing. I’m sure they are getting each other’s mail all the time, not to mention the public library in the town of Lincoln.
Re:No respect
Oy, bad mistake. Thanks for the info.
Re:No respect
Oh, well that changes things a bit. Nice to know the other place is not falling apart.
Still, a month. They could have moved quicker, but perhaps 9/10ths of it was bidding, and other red tape nonsense and not real a/c fixing people.