Essay #1 First Draft

“In many housing neighborhoods, the infrastructure (heating, electrical, water and sewage systems) relies on inefficient technology and obsolete equipment” – Soldiers Magazine, August, 2005

Whoever your are there should be no doubt in your mind that your quality life as well as that of your children and family is greatly impacted, either negatively or positively, by the place you call home; wherever home is for you. For those familiar with the military lifestyle and most adults in general nowadays, it is pretty much common knowledge that the military provides housing for service members and their families. What appears to be not so common knowledge is the fact that service members pay for their housing each month just as civilians pay their rent or mortgage each month. When you pay for a product or service aren’t you therefore entitled to the guaranteed obligations your money purchased?

Passed by Congress in 1996, the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996 established the Residential Communities Initiative (RCI). RCI authorized the military to enter into agreements with private contractors to own, maintain and operate military housing on a fifty year lease on installations throughout the U.S. and was lauded as being the cure all to the military’s housing problems such as those cited in the above quote from Soldiers Magazine. Consistent with the Army, RCI touted its major goal to be the elimination of inadequate Army family housing in the U.S. Although the private company under contract with the U.S. Government to own, operate, and maintain the privatized military family housing units on Fort Belvoir claims all of their housing units are adequate and energy efficient, the housing units in the Dogue Creek Subdivision of Fort Belvoir are inadequate and lack appropriate energy efficiency because of inadequate furnaces, inadequate windows and doors, and improperly installed thermostats.

Having resided in military housing in virtually all climates for over fifteen years has allowed for an extensive acquisition of knowledge regarding the appropriate furnace for a specific housing unit. Additionally, there is the personal experience in the Heating Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC) industry, as well as being a current resident of military housing in the Dogue Creek Subdivision of Fort Belvoir, that uniquely qualifies this writer to discuss this subject.

The current furnace units in the Dogue Creek homes are inadequate and substandard in their installation and efficiency because they are all up flow model furnaces that lack timely preventive maintenance, they are assembled unprofessionally, and are not adequately sealed.

Furthermore, up flow furnaces are designed for ground floor residential installation in single or two story homes. All of the homes in Dogue Creek are now three story homes with the furnaces installed on the second floor. The up flow furnaces were designed specifically to facilitate the flow of hot air along its normal path; upward. And worked rather well when they were installed on the ground floor of these homes, which at one time were two story homes. To enable an up flow furnace to blow air back down to lower levels significant aftermarket structural changes to the furnace configuration needed to be made. These changes involved reconfiguring and adding duct that turns downward 90 degrees from the top of the furnace to allow a chamber for air to flow downward. Making these changes, however, has resulted in the furnaces operating in a manner that is in contravention of the manufacturer’s specifications and recommendations, further affecting their efficiency.

In 2001, the Dogue Creek homes were converted to add a third floor and the current up flow furnaces were reinstalled on the second floor during the conversion. It would appear that there was little or no consideration given to the additional square footage achieved during the conversion, or the need to install a down flow furnace to compensate for the loss of warm air to the lower level because the aftermarket changes were ineffective. The result is significant temperature and humidity variances throughout the Dogue Creek homes. For example, on January 17, 2009, the following temperatures and variances were observed in one Dogue Creek housing unit.

1st Floor Temperature Differences:

· Kitchen thermometer @ 58 degrees Fahrenheit while Living Room thermometer @ 70 degrees Fahrenheit and unit thermostat located in living room @ 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

· These temperatures on the 1st floor demonstrate temperature variances of 17 degrees Fahrenheit within an approximate 20-40 square foot area.

2nd Floor Temperature Differences:

· 2nd floor hallway thermometer @ 89 degrees Fahrenheit while directly across hall in Laundry/Furnace Room thermometer @ 100+ degrees Fahrenheit with humidity @ less than 10%, well below normal ranges of 35% to 60%.

3rd Floor Temperature:

· 3rd floor hallway thermometer @ 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Also affecting adequacy and efficiency is the lack of proper maintenance of the furnaces. Inspection of the affixed service records along with the interior of one Dogue Creek furnace unit indicated the last time a full service and maintenance check was completed on the furnaces by a licensed HVAC professional, was in 2001 or 2002.

Under these conditions, the lack of maintenance has resulted in the housing units suffering a serious degradation in efficiency, effectiveness and overall functionality, and poses a potential threat to the health and safety of residents.

By far the most critical part of any heating system is the furnace. There are, however, other elements that work in conjunction with the furnace that facilitate efficiency in the home. Three of these elements are windows, doors, and thermostats.

The windows of a particular residence need to be of the proper efficiency rating for the geographic area in which the home is located, and need to be installed correctly. Dogue Creek homes are located in northern Virginia and therefore have two specific recommended ratings as determined by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE): Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) and U-Factor. The SHGC rating is SHGC≤0.55, while the U-Factor rating is U≤0.40. In layman’s terms U-Factor is defined as the amount of heat that flows through a particular material, and SHGC is defined as how much heat from the sun is blocked by the window. The scientific jargon and in depth explanation of these ratings is irrelevant to this discussion.

The issue in the Dogue Creek homes is that the aforementioned ratings should be clearly visible on the manufacturer’s label which is required to be affixed to each window. Labels are not present. In addition to proper rating, windows need to be installed correctly. In the simplest of terms, installed correctly, means that the correct size window is installed for the size of the window opening, and each window is installed so that it is “plumb” or level. In the Dogue Creek home that maintained the aforementioned furnace, not a single manufacturer’s label could be located on any window in the residence. Additionally, further inspection detailed serious mechanical and maintenance issues with several of the windows in the residence. These issues involved improper leveling, improper seals, and improper sash spacing due to faulty latch mechanisms. From a maintenance perspective the caulking and glazing around the window panes and frames were found to be deteriorating due to age and failed maintenance on the part of the contractor.

The window issues noted above are in part responsible for the overall inefficiency of the heating system. Additionally, there are two remaining areas of concern related to the Dogue Creek housing units; improperly sealed entry/exit (E/E) doors and improper location of thermostats. These two issues complement one another and together adversely impact the overall efficiency of the homes.

An inspection of several dogue Creek homes revealed torn and deteriorating E/E door seals which allowed for a constant flow of cold air into the homes. Furthermore, the furnace thermostats in these three story homes are located in the center of the main floor of each residence, directly between the front and rear E/E door respectively. When combined with the continual cold air flow due to bad door seals, the problem of inefficiency is compounded because the constant drafts from the E/E doors opening and closing results in the thermostat igniting the already inadequate and dangerous furnace. Thus, the furnace is constantly starting and stopping in an effort to heat the first floor of the residence while the second and third floors become excessively hot.

While the contractor maintains that all of their homes are energy efficient, the above documentation clearly demonstrates that the contractor’s position is false. Several tenants of the Dogue Creek Subdivision were interviewed and stated they had made numerous complaints to the contractor regarding the same issues over a period of several years. The tenants stated that after attempting to contact the 24 hour maintenance staff on numerous occasions, the contractor would only dispatch maintenance technicians who performed “window dressing” maintenance. Essentially, they stated the technicians were unable to fix the problems and only succeeded in doing minor things such as attempting to lock windows, replacing thermostats, closing ceiling vents or providing electric space heaters in an attempt to compensate for heat loss.

The technicians should not be faulted as each maintained the highest levels of professionalism and dedication to their duties, however, each lacked the necessary training, experience, and certifications for the type of maintenance required in homes that lacked proper maintenance or service for a period approaching ten years.

Several technicians were also interviewed and stated the issues identified in this document were consistent with numerous reported heating problems throughout the residential community at Fort Belvoir. Two of the technicians disclosed that they were in fact not qualified to conduct any type of work outside of the scope of work previously mentioned by the tenants in an aforementioned paragraph. Both indicated they were directed by management staff to do minimal work on the quarters in the Dogue Creek Subdivision because the priority for the contractor was the construction of new homes on Fort Belvoir, and the Dogue Creek homes would eventually be destroyed and replaced with new homes. In addition, one technician stated the maintenance office receives similar complaints from tenants in the newly constructed homes regarding similar issues.

While the contractor claims that all of their housing units at Fort Belvoir are energy efficient it is blaringly obvious after interviewing tenants and technicians, that the contractor is only focused on their newly constructed homes. The contractor purports their newly constructed homes are Energy Star certified but there appears to be serious doubt about this claim as well due to the number of tenant complaints from these subdivisions pertaining to the same heating efficiency issues experienced by the tenants of Dogue Creek. Is this a systemic problem involving contractor fraud that requires further investigation? Who knows for sure but one thing is certain; the Dogue Creek homes are clearly inadequate and lack proper energy efficiency. As for the newly constructed homes on Fort Belvoir, there are standards for Energy Star certification and perhaps the tenants simply need to wear a sweatshirt or put on a blanket in order to be more comfortable.

The bottom line is that the contractor is limiting its capital outlay toward the Dogue Creek homes and will only act accordingly when the tenant forces the contractor’s hand. In other words, the tenant must put sufficient pressure on the contractor so they realize that the tenant could make things really bad if word of the contractor’s failure to remedy were to be released to the media or high ranking military officials.