Utilities Maintenance
Plumbing Shop
The Plumbing Shop maintains and repairs all plumbing systems for domestic hot and cold water, sanitary sewage, heating hot water and chilled water supply lines, natural gas lines, and other piping as needed. Our team of plumbers ensure that all plumbing fixtures and piping are installed and maintained according to building codes and safety requirements. They also perform periodic inspections and preventive maintenance of dining hall grease lines and traps, sump pumps, and water softeners. They also repair, replace, and maintain back flow preventer's as required by the city of Athens.
Tunnel Maintenance
The Tunnel Maintenance Shop maintains the campus utility tunnels. There are almost five miles of tunnels beneath Ohio University’s campus. The tunnels provide a means of supplying steam and domestic hot water to campus. Tunnel shop personnel rebuild/replace condensate receivers, heating hot water pumps, and chilled water pumps throughout campus. The tunnel shop also performs the vast majority of welding needing done on campus. A limited capacity of machining work can be performed at the tunnel shop as well.
HVAC Shop
The HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) shop maintains and optimizes indoor air quality, energy efficiency, and occupant thermal comfort in support of the University’s academic and student housing needs. This is done by maintaining the various types of equipment across campus buildings such as window AC’s, mini split units, DX units, and various types of chillers and boilers. Additionally, the HVAC shop ensures the proper function of refrigerated food service equipment and critical research refrigeration.
Control Shop
The Control Shop maintains the campus building’s HVAC control systems. This includes pneumatic controls and direct digital controls (DDC) as well as all of the components that these systems controls such and damper and valve actuators. Most of these systems come back to a “front end” computer where certain adjustments can be made remotely.
Electric Shop
The Electric Shop is responsible for the maintenance and repair of campus electrical systems throughout roughly 9 million square feet of campus buildings as well as outside pole lighting on campus grounds. Systems include lighting, medium voltage electrical distribution from the main switchyard to various substations across campus, motors, pumps, variable feed drives, clock systems, and any event power needs that arise. They are also responsible for wiring in any emergency generators in buildings that do not have generator backup in the event of a power failure.
PM Shop
The Preventive Maintenance Shop performs most of the preventive maintenance tasks such as filter changes, greasing, and belt replacements associated with equipment across campus buildings. This equipment includes air handling units, exhaust fans, heating hot water and chilled water pumps, and air compressors. They also handle most of the repair work such as replacing motors and bearings in equipment upon failures.
Relief Maintenance
The Relief Maintenance Shop handles any and all maintenance calls during evenings, nights, and weekends. These tasks may include responding to water leaks reported, small electrical tasks like resetting breakers, or any other emergencies that may arise. They also make checks on critical equipment such as chillers and boilers while they are making their rounds.
Low Voltage Maintenance
The Low Voltage Maintenance Shop is responsible for installing and maintaining campus and regional campus’s communication cabling and data drops. They also help with maintaining lighting controls and electric metering in all main campus buildings.