Water main leak damages high-tech engineering centers building

An estimated 30,000 gallons of water were released early this morning when a pair of chilled water coils, one in each of two parallel air-handling systems, froze up, flooding the top floor that houses mechanical systems for the Engineering Centers Building.

Physical plant associate director Faramarz Vakili says the drains in the mechanical room were not adequate to handle the volume of water, which seeped through the floor and rained down on the floors below.

The third floor, which houses clean rooms in the Wisconsin Center for Applied Microelectronics (WCAM), was most affected. Lab managers are in the process of assessing the damage. WCAM provides facilities for researchers building devices on an incredibly small scale. Nanoscale and microscale devices such as advanced computer chips are fabricated in the labs.

The first and second floors also had water damage, but it was relatively minor, according to Vakili.

Vakili says it appears that the digital controllers of the two air-handling systems had some kind of failure, but because it did not effect the entire operation of the air-handling units, no alarm went off.

The flooding began around 5 a.m., and was detected after power plant workers noticed that a lot of chilled water was missing. UW–Madison police and physical plant personnel searched for the source of the problem, and found it at Engineering Centers around 7 a.m.

The affected area of the building was closed until the situation could be assessed and the water could be cleaned up.

So far, there has been no estimate of the damage. Insurance adjusters were to arrive at mid-day.

“Compared to what it could have been, this was not catastrophic,” says Vakili. “We were very concerned there might be damage to the electrical system, but that did not happen.”

The Engineering Centers Building, 1550 Engineering Drive, opened in fall 2002.