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- Assignments:
- The PSFC provides office space for Fusion students, see your supervisor for an office assignment in those areas.
- Professor Cappellaro has offices in building 26 and will assign offices to her own students there.
- Professor Yildez Yildiz has office spaces in building 13 and will assign offices to her own students there.
- All other students will need to contact the ANS Co-Presidents for an office assignment (NW12, NW13, NW14, Building 24).
- Contact Pete Brenton (email pbrenton (at) mit.edu, call 617-253-3185 or stop by 24-111) when you aren't sure who to ask, and when its clearly not an academic question (that's Clare Egan and Heather's Barry area). At the very bottom of this page are instructions on the heat and air conditioning operation, for those who have yet to master thermodynamics.
- Overall, please call or email Pete Brenton (for NSE spaces) and/or Facilities (Call FIXIT or 3-4948 or go to https://atlas-mit-edu.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/atlas/Main.action?tab=home&sub=group_servreq) if there is a problem with one of the below pieces of equipment, or any other facility emergency. Often people complain about the heat or A/C and often fixing the problem is a simple repair or inexpensive replacement, or even some basic instruction about proper use.
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Let Pete Brenton know ASAP if any of these things are missing, not working, or working poorly. Also talk to Pete if you have special needs. See the end of this message before telling me the heat or A/C is broken.
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- If you must rearrange the furniture, do not put anything in front of the radiators or air conditioners. This makes it impossible to change the air filters, to repair broken units, and/or blocks the warm or cold air from reaching most of the room.
- Do not put anything under ceiling mounted A/C units. They drip in humid months and can ruin your electronics.
Please let Pete Brenton know if you have any
speciaspecial office l needs. We will do our best to meet them. Pete make no promises, but he does like to make life easier. He won’t do Psets.
- Campus "standard" is to assign each student about 50 square feet, so there is not going to be a lot of room for additional furnishings, but ask away if you want. All requests for an in-office couch will be deleted before reading. Those you see in other offices were scrounged by students, not provided by the department, and will need to go to the dumpster when the space is needed for real live people. Occasionally your ANS student organization co-chairs will decide to put some of their hard-wrangled funds towards general use 'nice' furniture in public spaces (as seen in the ANS lounge). Other times Pete can be wheedled into such things (his wording, not ours). He’d rather buy people nice desk chairs though.
- If you enter via the NW12 front/side doors, please be aware this is a secure building and do not let anyone follow you in (that you don't know). Visitors and delivery people should ring the bell and go to the front desk. Don't let anyone in. Seriously, do not let them if you don't know them personally. Be rude if you must. Remember that the NRC regulates that facility (the MIT reactor) and they can be really cause serious issues if this is not being followed.
- Please do not store personal items in your office (that is, clothes, boxes full of books, exotic pets, personal radioactive waste, etc). Summertime and Winter Break in particular is when we do minor renovations where there may be only a week or two notice. If your stuff from your sublet-ed apartment is in storage bins in your office, Pete might need to haul it away (he could always use more stuff). Please do make your space comfortable for you to work in, within reason. Anything that is renovation-like, please clear with me first. Do your best to minimize damage to walls, floor, ceiling etc. Remember that when you leave, Pete Brenton has to sign your graduation paperwork before you get your degree. This is why. White glove inspections are mandatory.
- No bike storage in offices or hallways. In fact, it’s against fire code, since multiple bikes can be an evacuation hazard. Less importantly, (but important to *Pete*) lugging a bike through the halls leads to accidental dings and marks on the walls and floors. There also is not enough space. Leave your bike outside. Yes, several professors, who shall remain nameless, are bad boys and keep their bikes in their offices. Pete Brenton has told them not to. They are bad and don’t get cookies. Alas they won’t let Pete Brenton fire professors any moreare bad and don’t get cookies. Alas they won’t let Pete Brenton fire professors any more.
Be aware of your personal security on Albany Street, particularly after dark. Not only is this a city like any other, there is a “wet” homeless shelter down Albany Street. The Customers of that facility can be a bit, well, drunk, with predictable results. In fact, the ANS goes and feeds them once a month. Get to know your neighbors!...but don’t walk alone with then at night. Let me know right away of any security issue with the Albany Street buildings (or 24 for that matter). Doors should all close securely. The back doors have hold-open alarms, if you see people in the halls that look like they don’t belong please do not hesitate to call MIT Police; they would much rather respond to a couple of false alarms than see any of you get hurt. I won’t reiterate MIT saferide resources here, see MIT’s web page.
Services available, and how to handle issues
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This is primarily for the people in NW12, NW13, NW14 and Building 24. Others may benefit too. This email is intended to aid you in operating your environmental controls to the extent that they listen to our suggestions.
- NW14 slider: Our suite in this building has one simple slider in each room that will make your office either too hot or too cold. It looks like a light dimmer. Have fun with that. In extreme cases I can have facilities adjust the range up or down a degree or two.
- HEAT: We use steam heat on campus, which is possibly the worst method of providing comfort cooling, but hey, it was installed in the early part of the 20th century, so we’re stuck with it for the foreseeable future. It is delivered through big cast iron radiators. There is usually a control knob on the side or under the radiator with arbitrary numbers that substitute for an actual thermostatic control. Steam radiator heating is *very* slow to adjust to a new setting, so when you change the setting move the dial only one or two numbers at a time and allow at least a half hour to see the result of your adjustment, or else you may find yourself in a sauna quite unexpectedly. Make sure there is nothing on top of the radiator (especially a fishbowl, that was a tragic mistake), and keep the area in front of the radiator clear to allow air to circulate in the room. Note that both the controller and the pressure release valves (at the other end of the radiator from the controller) fail regularly for no particular reason, so if you walk into your office and its 85 degrees F and there’s a whistle like a teakettle, email me and/or call facilities.
- Steam radiators: they often make a lot of noise when they are turned on for the first time in the season. This sounds exactly like there is some guy in the basement hitting the pipes with a hammer. Generally speaking this should go away within the first few hours (but can be really loud until then). Those of you who have taken thermodynamics can explain why this happens to those who have not. MIT turns on the heat only after the temperature dips pretty low (like 50F) but then it is "on" for the winter. Conveniently, steam heat is usually either too hot or not hot enough.
- Thermostat: many offices deceptively have a thermostat on the wall. Sometimes these have some influence over the temperature, but often only either the heat or the cooling. Your best bet is to start the thermostat off between 65 and 70 degrees F (most U.S. thermostats do not have "C" indicated) and adjust slowly from that starting point. Most people find this a comfortable range. You can often see the control lines for the thermostat and work out what it does or does not control.
- AIR CONDITIONING (A/C): Almost every office has a steel box called a fan coil unit either hanging from the ceiling or sitting on the floor. This unit is just a fan and some cooling coils which are piped for chilled water (and sometimes hot water for heating). MIT generally turns off the chilled water supply (for A/C) in fall and turns it on again in the spring, so although the fan will run, no actual cooling will happen if you operate the unit in winter (but knock yourself out, I don’t mind, and it makes the air move a bit). A/C units are operated by a switch either on the wall or, if the box is floor mounted, on the unit itself, often under a small door, which occasionally is stuck or conveniently painted closed. The fan has settings for low, medium and high, and none of those will be perfectly comfortable, so most of us get our once-per half hour exercise getting up and turning the fan on or off. The fan needs to be on for any cooling to happen. Confusingly, some A/C units also seem to be controlled by a thermostat (but only if the control lines lead from the thermostat to the A/C unit). In those cases adjusting the thermostat has a small chance of changing how often cold water is running through the unit in an attempt to keep the temperature to specific setting, but does not affect the fan speed, which you still need to adjust using a low-medium-high switch.
- Keep the area in front of floor mounted A/C units clear. The units have a filter that requires changing every six months, and they can't get at it if your desk is in the way. Also, if the unit breaks they cannot get at it to repair it.
- Be aware that air conditioners generate condensation which is drained away through a small pipe, which is just small enough to clog up when enough dust has accumulated in it. Every single A/C unit will at some point leak water on whatever is below it. Please call me and/or enter a repair into the Facilities web site if this occurs. Always refrain from putting electronics or other water-damageable items under the ceiling mounted A/C units. Do not leave these units running when you are not in your office.
- VENTILATION: You will see in many places a grille on the wall that might just have ‘fresh’ air coming out of it. This is simply a fresh air circulation duct. It is intended to bring fresh air into closed spaces from outside (after heating it to room temperature). Please do not block these vents.
- WINDOWS: We are fortunate that most of our offices have opening windows. Fortunately they also close (usually). Do not leave them open when you leave the office, especially on particularly cold or hot days. In particular in NW the amount of dust coming off the tracks will leave you with a fine grit on your desk when you return.
Please be considerate of your office mates when making adjustments to the temperature.
Energy conservation
The following are energy saving requests: Remember that your tuition pays in part for MIT's energy costs
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