Recreation
County tries to beat the heat with repairs to rec center cooling system
It was hot inside the Waccamaw Regional Recreation Center, where users have complained for months about the faulty air conditioning.
It was hotter on the roof.
“I think the heat index here was like 130 degrees,” Patrick Sanders, head HVAC technician for Georgetown County’s Facility Services division, said as he watched the gauges on a vacuum pump connected to one of two 30-ton units on the roof.
Those units are for the 14,500-square-foot gym. There are 10 smaller units for the other spaces inside the center. The entire building was closed this week while the gym units were repaired.
While the work coincided with a heat wave, Sanders took it in stride.
“It doesn’t matter to me because I want to get these people cool,” he said. “We have a lot of older people that come to the gym here.”
Age is also an issue for the HVAC system.
“These are the original units,” Sanders said.
The building opened in 2013. The units are designed to last 15 to 20 years, but that doesn’t factor in the salt air on the coast or the humidity, he said. “It shortens the life cycle to about 10 years.”
Age is also a factor when it comes to repairs. The parts are hard to find.
“Luckily, we were able to find two compressors for this one,” Sanders said.
He was going to fill them with coolant once he completed some testing.
The county’s two other HVAC techs were just pulling up as Drew McCall Burke started her Pawleys Island Bootcamp under the center’s picnic shelter. Normally, they would be inside.
Sanders expected to have the center cooled down and open again Thursday, but late Wednesday after
Upnoon the county announced that the center would be closed the rest of the week.
The last time a vendor did the repairs, it took four days, he said. And he later found other problems.
“They pretty much run 24/7,” Sanders said. “It’s a lot of stress on the unit.”
And it’s compounded by temperature fluctuations that have the units constantly cycling on and off.
Three smaller units at the rec center have already been replaced and three more are scheduled for replacement, Sanders said.
The principles that apply to the rec center’s units also apply to residential systems.
“These units are actually designed to run at 75-71 degrees; 75 cool, 71 heat,” Sanders said. “Keep it in between those.”
Update: This article was updated from the print version after the county announced the center would remain closed all week.
