In
one building we would get complaints that when the weather got hot
the building smelt like a Gents Urinal, much time, effort & money
was spent trying to find the source of the problem, was there damage
to the stack pipes or a break between the toilets to the stack, no
problem could be found that would cause the smell. Out the back of
the building was an underground electrical sub station, by the
entrance door was a recess and a drain, the drain was blocked and
there was what we thought was water possibly 6-8 ins deep, it was not
our building or responsibility, the local vagrants were using the
stairs down to the entrance as a urinal, meaning it was not water but
urine, it was also discovered that the air intake for the air
conditioning was in the electrical sub station, the electricity board
got the drain unblocked, the problem disappear, the management liked
to do frequent reorganisations, knowledge about buildings was not
passed on and lost.
At
some point the company decided to replace the roller towels with
green paper towels to save money, the roller towels were removed and
money was saved on that budget, the number of blocked toilets and
stacks increased, one green paper towel could hold back a whole
stack, once the held back sewerage got to a certain level it would
find the path of least resistance, in this case the 1st floor ladies
toilet and then flow down the main staircase, resulting in a big
clean up, this was a fairly common occurrence, the building was being
transferred to another division within the company who had their own
facilities, the building a typical 1960's office and did not have the
best natural light, they had chosen dark grey furniture, it made the
floors look dark and dingy, before we had moved the last of our
people out, we got a blocked stack, sewerage coming out the first
floor ladies toilet and running down the stairs, we put into practice
the by now well tried clean up procedure, there facilities said to me
you must promises me this will never happen again, I said I can only
promise it will not happen again if your staff do not flush the green paper hand towels down the toilets, they never did move in as the group was
disbanded shortly afterwards.
The change to paper towels may have saved money on one budget, but increased the costs on another, in the end it cost far more than was saved.
The
building was on the site of the Holborn Empire, there was a
preservation order on the site, the building had to be in the
footprint of the Holborn Empire.
In another
building (now demolished) there would be flooding in one of the Gents
Toilets after it had rained, specialists were brought in various
coloured dyes were put on the roof to see if the water was coming in
from a leak in the roof, they could not find the source of the water,
it remained an unsolved problem, the staff were moved out and the
building was closed, during the soft strip it was found the the
urinals in that toilet had never been connected to the main stack and
had been draining into the area the stack ran down, the building was
about 60 years old and this problem had been there since Day1.
The building
had won a number of Architectural Awards when it was built, I was
based there after my Facilities days and was looking at the chimney,
on each floor it had a platform around the chimney these were close
fitting to the chimney, there was no drainage provided from the
platforms, the rain water had no way of escape and puddled there.