From: David Roberts <droberts**At_Symbol_Here**DEPAUW.EDU>
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Power shutdown
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2017 08:18:06 -0500
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: 96C93494-C153-4A3B-8C69-C1E36F1AD54C**At_Symbol_Here**depauw.edu
In-Reply-To <1513307959002.21565**At_Symbol_Here**SHSU.EDU>


Hello,


So - on our campus this is a fairly routine occurrence, meaning it happens about once per year for scheduled maintenance.  On that day, there is nobody on campus, all buildings are officially closed, and facilities does what they need to do.

Initially in the process, we had demands that all of our refrigerators and such be included on the generator plan.  Facilities nodded their head and said "sure, we can do that".  Come to find out after a few years of this, only designated outlets are connected to backup generator power.  Since our computer networks and such are in the building, we were not allowed to add a bunch of high amperage refrigerators to the mix.  We were able to compromise and get a red outlet placed next to our -80 freezers, so that they would stay online - but all others do go off when the power is out.

As was mentioned, we have contingencies since power goes out in Indiana often.  So for example, all of our enzymes for biochemistry are stored in strata coolers in the freezer.  As long as the freezer is not opened while the power is out - those will maintain temp for a very long time, and we really have had no issues.

All that said, we do not have even one hood that is on the emergency generator.  The majority of our hoods are used as protection for those working in them, and thus are kept empty when people are not around.  

So for us, when our power goes out, our hoods are off and the building is empty.  We have not had any long term power outages (over a day or so), and so it's been fine.

I'd worry more for animal care facilities and maybe cadaver labs, just on a side note.

Good luck with this

Dave


On Dec 14, 2017, at 10:19 PM, Battles, Paul <pmb024**At_Symbol_Here**SHSU.EDU> wrote:

Hello All,

So we have a scheduled 24 houpower outage (6am-6am) for most of campus, including our Chemistry & Forensics building at the end of December. They were planning on using a generator to keep the fridges and deep freezers running for the building. However, today the Chemistry chair told the project managers that wasn't sufficient, they had to also keep all of the fume hoods going as well. This would require a much larger and more expensive generator. Administration contacted me today to go over to chemistry and see if we could figure out a plan. My question is, will it be okay to leave the fume hoods down for 24 hours? Or is it required to keep the hoods running? Everything should be capped/closed and there won't be anyone allowed in the building. =E2=80=8B

Thanks,
Paul 
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