A falling tile from the ceiling of the dining hall barely missed Niklas Butchma ’17 during dinner a few days ago. Choate’s Facilities Services attached the tile back to the ceiling. According to Mr. Jeff Millers, Director of Facilities Services, this is an isolated incident.
Mr. Miller continued, “The tiles in the dining hall ceiling are actually glued to the substrate. This is an old style ceiling system that we do not install any longer. Over the many years that this type of tile has been in place, the glue can start to lose its power to hold, and a tile can come loose. This does not happen frequently, and we repair individual tiles as needed. We are in the planning stages to replace the entire ceiling with one that would not have these problems.”
Facilities Services supervises the upkeep of the physical appearance and function of campus buildings for the welfare of all Choate students, faculty, and staff. Mr. Miller explained, “Safety is always our primary concern. We will prioritize our long-range building plans based on both safety and architectural enhancements. Our management team does frequent inspections of buildings, and when safety deficiencies are identified, we address them immediately with a permanent repair if possible, or a temporary repair that will allow us time to determine a long-range fix.”
He elaborated on the various ways that they routinely ensure the soundness of the buildings, saying, “Managers do inspections of the buildings periodically throughout the year in order to detect deficiencies. We also have an automated work order system that is programmed to produce work orders for scheduled maintenance on equipment and building systems. All fire alarm and fire sprinkler systems have scheduled tests and inspections, as do our building mechanical systems.”
As for Butchma, he commented humorously, “Although I was not injured, the close call has provided me with a new perspective on life.”
