The Learning Innovation Center, which is approaching its 10th anniversary as an important learning facility on the Corvallis campus, is a model for sustainable design and innovative classroom environments. However, with state-of-the-art technology comes unique challenges from a maintenance perspective. The most common question that Facilities Services receives about the building is about lighting: why do there seem to be so many burned-out lightbulbs in the building’s signature, arena-style classrooms?
Because the ceilings are so high, Facilities employees would typically bring in a lift, which can reach higher than a ladder. But if they attempted to bring in a standard working platform lift, the floors, with air ducts hidden in a cavity below, would collapse.
The tiered, sloping floors present further obstacles to traditional lifts and ladders which can only be safely used in limited areas. With the lift and ladder options off the table, the next best solution is scaffolding. Because scaffolding is expensive and labor-intensive to assemble and break down, and requires special safety certifications, Facilities Services contracts with a third party to rent and assemble scaffolding which allows access to the light fixtures across an entire room.
Adding to these challenges, the company that manufactured the original light fixtures at LINC has since gone out of business, which means that there are no replacement bulbs available. So, every time a light burns out, the entire fixture must be replaced, in addition to the light bulb.
Because the process is so complex, costly and labor intensive, it’s impractical to change each lightbulb immediately. Instead, Facilities must wait until a significant percentage of bulbs have failed in each classroom at LINC before they take the classroom out of service, bring in the scaffolding and change the fixtures out. The cost of renting and assembling the scaffolding, plus the labor costs and 15-18 new light fixtures totals approximately $100,000.
So how hard can it really be to change a lightbulb? Quite a bit harder than you might expect! The complex maintenance needs at LINC underscore the monumental effort and coordination that is required to keep all of the buildings at OSU safe and functional, while also responsibly stewarding the university’s limited resources.
