The Library Vault

What? I can’t hear you… It’s pretty loud here, and we don’t get a lot of visitors to this part of the basement. What? You’ve never heard of me? I’m Will, the chiller for the HVAC system at the library. I’ve been here since 1994. I submitted my retirement paperwork in 2016, but they must have lost it. Most chillers go out of service after about 20 years, but I’ve been going for over 30 years. What can I say? Public service keeps me young.

It’s not for everybody, of course. I replaced a chiller that was less than half my size. Poor guy was only about 62 tons, and the building was too much for him. On July 6, 1993, the entire HVAC system went down, and the library didn’t have air conditioning for the rest of the summer. Brutal. I heard that they had to close the library early when it got too hot. Temperatures inside could get up to over 90 degrees. That’s not good for people, computers, machines, anything. The City of Middletown used $60,000 in emergency funds to purchase a new HVAC system, including me. In July 1994, I came in with a new water tower and four new pumps.

It’s not an easy job. Russell Library is a big place, right? About 45,000 square feet. That’s almost the same size as an NFL football field. I’m a 107 ton water cooled chiller, and we tend to work best in large buildings. My job is to chill the water. From there, a network of pumps sends it out to eleven air handling units throughout the building. They extract the cold from the water and distribute it as air conditioning throughout the library’s “aggressive ductwork.” Personally, I’ve never heard one bad word from the ductwork, so I don’t know about “aggressive.” He always lets us know when there are rumors of a heatwave coming. Good guy. Anyway, I send chilled water out to the pumps. They send it to the air handlers. They use it to cool the air and send the water back to me a little warmer. Then I cool it down and we do the whole thing again. All day. “Public service.”

I got air handling units throughout the library. There’s the big one in the basement. Good worker. Cools a lot of the children’s library. Never complains. I got another one up in the tower in the back. Cools the reading room. Not afraid of bats, which is a plus. There’s another air handling unit behind the teen space. She had to get used to the smell of AXE Body Spray. Powered through like a pro. There’s also one above the information area. Small but powerful. They’re a good crew. Keep the water flowing and the cool air blowing.

I’ve also got a good arrangement with the cooling tower upstairs. See, cooling a building doesn’t make the heat disappear. You gotta put it somewhere. The air handlers send warm water back to me, and I pull the heat out of it. Then another loop of water picks up that heat from my condenser and carries it upstairs to the cooling tower. He releases the heat outside and sends the cooler water back down to me. We do that over and over.

Good guy. Takes a lot of heat for me.

The water going to the cooling tower never mixes with the chilled water I send through the library. Different pipes. Different jobs. You don’t stay in public service for 32 years without learning how to delegate. I’ve actually got two separate water systems and a refrigerant loop working in here. None of them mix. Trust me, you don’t want them to mix.

Not a lot has changed in the basement over the last 32 years. New boiler came in about 2018. Now we’ve got two boilers, which is probably a good thing. Some days, I think it would be nice to retire. I’ve got some sticky parts. Sometimes they have to poke my insides to get them moving. It doesn’t hurt … just kind of tickles. If I go offline, they might be able to sell my parts. Units like me are pretty rare now. It would be nice to work in some different machines in other basements somewhere. See the world. Until then, I got it pretty good. This summer, the library staff brought me some treats to keep me going … Gummy nerds, water, fans, sunscreen… They called it an “offering.” I’m not sure what that was all about, but it was nice that they were thinking of me.

People don’t usually think about chillers until they break down in the middle of July. I’m not gonna let that happen on my watch, though. Public service is important. Gotta help everyone keep their cool.

References:

1. Chiller Photo in Mechanical Room. Kimberly Spachman. 2026. ↩︎
2. Cooling Tower Photo. Kimberly Spachman. 2026. ↩︎
3. Basement Air Handling Unit Photo. Kimberly Spachman. 2026. ↩︎
4. Library Tower Air Handling Unit Photo. Kimberly Spachman. 2026. ↩︎
5. “Blowing Hot Air.” Kimberly Spachman. 2026. ↩︎
6. “Offering to Will” Kimberly Spachman. 2026. ↩︎

Sources:

Dailey, Bill (August 27, 1994). “City Gets Both Good News and Bad News Middletown Hotel Hits Snag; Library Grant Approved.” The Hartford Courant.

The Engineering Mindset. “Chiller basics – How They Work.” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rzQhSXVq60

Interview and Tour with Dan Depaolo at Russell Library (July 8, 2026).

Miller, Emily (July 23, 1994). “Relief ahead for patrons at city library: Repairs advance on cooling system.” The Middletown Press.

Turner, Tim (July 15, 1993). “City Library without A/C has staff, patrons dewy.” The Middletown Press.