Privatized Military Housing - The Answer to Adequate Quarters.....or Window Dressing? - Essay #1 Final

“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 or wherever you happen to be living, 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 of you reading this who happen to be familiar with the military lifestyle, and most adults in general nowadays, it is pretty much common knowledge that the military provides housing for military 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 or specified 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 program throughout the U.S. RCI 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 as being "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, this writer has acquired sufficient 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, are assembled unprofessionally, and are not adequately sealed. Furthermore, aftermarket re-configuration of these furnaces has resulted in their inefficiency. (See photos below)

Substandard Installation & Assembly


Inadequate Seals

 
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. These 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 during their initial construction as 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. (See photo below)

In 2001, the Dogue Creek homes were converted to add a third floor, which resulted in these Up Flow furnaces being relocated to their current location on the second floor. 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 for the additional square footage of the homes. The result; 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. (See photos below temperature differences)

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 of the homes is the lack of proper maintenance of the furnaces. A visual 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 furnace by a licensed HVAC professional, was in 2001 or 2002. (See photos below)

Under these conditions, the lack of maintenance has resulted in numerous housing units suffering a serious degradation in efficiency, effectiveness and overall functionality, causing the affected quarters to be viewed by tenants as a potential threat to health and safety. (See photos below)





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 to 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, therefore, they 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≤ (less than or equal to) 0.55, while the U-Factor rating is U≤ (less than or equal to) 0.40. In layman’s terms the U-Factor is defined as the amount of heat that flows through a particular material, and the 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. These labels were not present during an inspection of the Dogue Creek home that maintained the furnace mentioned above. In the simplest of terms, installed correctly, means that the correct sized window is installed in the correct sized window opening cut into each home, and each window is installed so that it is “plumb,” or level. Additionally, further inspection detailed serious mechanical and maintenance issues with several 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. (See photos below)

The window issues noted above also add to 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 thermostats designed to control the Up Flow furnaces in these three story homes were located in the center of the main floor of each residence; directly between the front and rear E/E doors. 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 because of the entry and exit habits of tenants, ultimately resulting in thermostats igniting the already inadequate and dangerous furnaces. The premature and unnecessary ignition and consistent stopping and starting of the furnaces was responsible for the excessive heat on the second and third floors of the residences. (See photo below)



While the contractor maintains their position that all of their homes are energy efficient, the indications as documented above, clearly demonstrate the contractor’s position is false.

Several tenants of the Dogue Creek Subdivision were interviewed and stated they have made numerous complaints to the contractor regarding the same issues over a period of several years which resulted in mediocre responses on the part of the contractor. 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, these technicians were unable to fix the problems reported by the tenants, and only succeeded in completing minor things describes as attempting to lock windows, replacing thermostats, closing ceiling vents, or providing electric space heaters in an attempt to compensate for heat losses experienced by tenants. These technicians should not be faulted as further inquiry has established that each technician maintained the highest levels of professionalism and dedication to their duties, however, each technician lacked the necessary training, experience, and/or certifications for the type of maintenance required in homes that lacked proper maintenance or service for a period approaching ten years.

Two 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. During interviews these technicians disclosed that they were not qualified to perform any work outside the scope of the work mentioned in the previous paragraph. Both indicated they were directed by management 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, this directive was predicated by the plan that the Dogue Creek homes would eventually be destroyed and replaced with new homes. Additionally, one technician stated the maintenance office frequently receives similar complaints from tenants in newly constructed on Fort Belvoir, pertaining to similar heating and cooling issues.

Living in a Dogue Creek home, as well as having interviewed both tenants and technicians, has clearly shown that the contractor's focus is on their newly constructed homes, and not the older homes still housing numerous residents on Fort Belvoir. The contractor's focus is clear; keep the tenants residing in Dogue Creek at bay as much as possible. In doing so, the contractor still purports their newly constructed homes are Energy Star certified, but, there appears to be serious doubt about this claim because of 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?

Dogue Creek homes are clearly inadequate and certainly 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 don 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 in an effort to keep the tenants at bay while they continue to build new housing units.

In closing, the contractor must realize that the lack of adequate maintenance in the Dogue Creek Subdivision and other subdivisions that are pending reconstruction needs to continue to be a significant focus in the contractor's eye. It is absolutely unacceptable to think that a tenant must put sufficient pressure on a contractor in order for the contractor to act in good faith to correct insufficiencies that have been identified in a set of quarters. Does the contractor remotely realize that the tenants could make things really bad if the contractor fails to legally and adequately remedy legitimate issues with individual housing units?