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K-12 Rental Programs: Short-Term Agility in an Emergency

May 11, 2021

Rental 11MAY

A broken HVAC chiller. Mold issues. 500 students needing to return to school. The pressures around managing aging schools are never-ending and are further complicated when buildings close due to faulty or broken systems.

For an Alabama elementary school, this was a reality. A two-month replacement lead time only made it worse.

“In this case, the existing chiller went down and could not be repaired,” said Chad Malo, Trane Commercial Rental account manager. “A new chiller was required, which had to be engineered prior to its installation. In addition, this school had a history of mold issues due to high humidity whenever the chiller went down.”

This school isn’t alone. More than half of the 130,000 public and private K-12 schools across the United States need significant building improvements1, according to surveys compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

Since the late 90s, research2 conducted on the state of our national school buildings has illuminated many building maintenance requirements from aging schools and inconsistent funding to staying ahead of facility infrastructure issues3. Because building improvements are frequently deferred due to budget constraints, many school systems find themselves in emergency situations while seeking funding sources for permanent repairs.

“School closures due to HVAC issues can be mitigated quickly with a variety of application solutions,” said Ray Micheletti, Trane Regional Rental Solutions leader for the Southeast Region. “We’ve helped many schools stay open safely by quickly rolling out a temporary HVAC solution to help solve ventilation and cooling and heating issues.”

Keeping immediate solutions on hand with a well-developed contingency plan can help facility managers and administrators keep schools open while more permanent solutions can be funded and implemented.

Keeping a school open in the high heat and humidity of the Alabama summer was straightforward for Malo – all it would take is a Trane chiller rental.

“Having a contingency plan in place prior to failure is a great practice for schools. This makes having to rent equipment very fast and keeps down time to a minimum,” Malo said.

The rental unit was quickly switched over to the replacement unit, with limited to no disruption to the building’s comfort and air quality.

Have a Contingency Plan in Place
Natural disasters aren’t the only driver for emergency plans. School facility managers and administrators can easily stay on top of a critical outage with a step-by-step plan for a variety of building emergency issues. This can include having emergency funding pre-approved, so services can be rolled out quickly.

Agility in an Emergency
On a Friday afternoon in Louisiana’s Deep South during the hottest months of the year, a parish school system suddenly lost its cooling system. Air quality and comfort quickly declined.

“With a quick call to their Trane account manager and another call to me, we were able to deliver and install a temporary 300-ton air-cooled chiller the next morning. We had them cooling again by lunchtime.” said Thomas Hoge, Trane Commercial Rental account manager. “Because they have a great working relationship with their Trane account manager, we were able to easily attain all the information necessary to roll out and get this school system back up and running.”

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Sources:
 1  U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Fast Response Survey System (FRSS), "Condition of Public School Facilities: 2012-13," FRSS 105, 2013. (This table was prepared April 2014.)

2  U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2014). Condition of America's Public School Facilities (NCES 2014-022).

3  Education Week, https://www.edweek.org/leadership/data-u-s-school-buildings-age-condition-and-spending/2017/11: November 28, 2017