Too hot! Too cold! Just right

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Kristin High
  • 2nd Bomb Wing Public Affairs
BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. --  With winter swiftly approaching and cold fronts moving in quickly, Barksdale Airmen will see a sudden change in room temperature. It's not just in the home, the comfort level at work needs to be adjusted to accommodate the change in season.

The 2nd Civil Engineer Squadron Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration and Energy Management Control System flight controls and repairs the heating and cooling systems in more than 900 facilities across the base.

More than 30 professional mechanics conduct repairs and conducts regular check-ups on the base's ventilation and air conditioning systems.

"Our shop maintains more than 10,000 tons of air conditioning equipment across Barksdale." said Tech. Sgt. Eyup Zorsahin, 2CES HVAC NCO in charge. "We handle chillers, air handlers, boilers and A/C units basically anything to keep the building temperature moderated and humidity down."

On the HVAC side of the shop, Airmen go out to locations to fix any problems that may occur with A/C and heating including maintaining, repairing and installing controls for HVAC equipment throughout the base.

EMCS can controls everything using a computer system that can monitor, start and stop, alarm and trend any HVAC equipment.

With more than 98 buildings and 44,000 field points, the HVAC and EMCS flight manages and controls more than $44,000,000 of heating and cooling systems.

To keep up with customers' demands from the numerous locations, the HVAC and EMCS flight works around the clock to keep Team Barksdale as comfortable as possible.

"A lot of times people don't know who we are until their A/C or heating equipment stops working, and then they appreciate what we do," Zorsahin added. "When you're too hot or too cold, you're uncomfortable. People need air conditioning and heating to function properly."

Keeping people comfortable isn't the only job HVAC and EMCS shop is responsible for, they also monitor and control humidity inside of buildings.

"With Barksdale being located in one of the most humid states, there's a lot of delicate equipment that can be damaged if things such as humidity and temperature aren't kept at tolerable levels," said Doug Hardin, 2 CES Air Conditioning shop foreman.

HVAC is critical to controlling the amount of condensation and static electricity that can form around computer servers, otherwise damaging important equipment on the base which would bring the Barksdale mission comes to a halt.

Overall the HVAC and EMCS flight helps to keep Barksdale's Airmen and mission-essential systems running.