Wascana Rehab Centre air conditioning to be fixed

A problem with the air conditioning at the Wascana Rehabilitation Centre is being fixed.

A power outage on Thursday blew one of the two chillers within the air conditioning system at the facility. Technicians were called in to inspect the equipment and they quickly found a circuit board had fried and destroyed the one unit.

“We’ve had extreme heat and extreme humidity over the weekend so it’s unfortunate this is when we actually lost the unit,” said Andre Kroeger, executive director of facilities management.

He explained these units were brand new and powerful enough for one unit to cool the building by itself for outside temperatures around the mid-20s. The Wascana Rehab Centre has two in place for redundancy and if temperatures soar above 30 C.

Kroeger stressed that at no time did the building completely lose its air conditioning, it just wasn’t operating at full capacity. A replacement unit was flown in Monday morning and should be completely installed and running by Tuesday.

In the meantime, the facility warmed up over the weekend to around 25 C, making it uncomfortable for residents.

Debbie Sinnett, executive director of long-term care, explained they shut down unoccupied sections of the building, turned off lights, closed blinds and brought in fans to make it as cool as possible.

She assured that although there was an uncomfortable period, all residents are OK and no one suffered from heat-related illnesses.

AShepherd@rawlco.com
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