Antonette's Lessons Learned Story #1: Bubblegum

Several years ago my fellow compatriot encountered a frustrating situation. His newly constructed Laboratory with temperature and humidity specifications would not hold its humidity requirements. As month followed month, we conceded the competition among us, that his problem was by far worse than anything we were experiencing. NO great consolation to him, but we followed his progress with anxiety and hopeful anticipation. As he reviewed the design criteria, the instrument calibration, the humidistat device location, control program logic, room construction, the HVAC loop control, the trending continued to proclaim the problem persisted, humidity measured outside the design operating limits. We felt as though we were living his problem, but since it wasn't ours, I doubt seriously if we felt the pain anywhere near the same extent. Then my friend gets a brain fart "what makes me think the space is out of specification"? He slings a trusty measuring device and low and behold, no problem. A progression of daily confirmations yields that the problem re-appears and disappears without any rhyme or reason. This is getting really interesting. Contractors are now repeatedly checking the wall mounted device, replacing the annoying gizmo (highly technical term for delinquent, offensive thing) and electrical and control wiring are being looked at. Then my committed peer makes an unanticipated, though highly commendable visit, during his lunch break to his nemesis project site. The dedicated if not forgetful contractor caught unawares, gowned in his GMP attire realizes he is chewing gum. Well how bad can it be, the space is not qualified, its still technically under construction, but better play it safe, so he stashes the gum in the conduit to the rear of the device and reconnects it. I am sure he planned to retrieve it later. But my friend notices thereafter each day the room is in spec., the HVAC is responding as it should to the humidistat and life is suddenly good. But like a good project engineer, he didn't walk away as many might; he continued his quest for why in the blazes it worked! He found the gum, and he questioned why this made a difference, and he followed the conduit and the solution smacked him right upside his tortured head. Are you there? The conduit was not sealed but ran only into the interstitial above where the control wiring continued unobstructed to its destination. The humidistat was not solely measuring the room space, instead it was also sensing unconditioned interstitial relative humidity via the conduit connected direct to the rear of the device. Upon proper sealing of the conduit, no I don't think the gum was returned to the contractor, the space worked like a champ.

Don't you just love it.