Carmichael Gymnasium canceled all classes and fitness center operations after the main circuit breaker to the facility blew Wednesday morning.
Jack Colby, assistant vice chancellor for Facilities Operations, said the breaker was the original hardware of the gym facilities since it was installed 1961.
“With the condition of the equipment and the heavy electrical load, the breaker unit began to fail,” Colby said. “As it heated up, the breaker failed and blew apart.”
Due to the “vintage” of the breaker, according to Colby, the University had to purchase a spare breaker from a distributor in California—buying last available breaker of this type in stock.
According to Eric Dean, power systems engineer, the breaker failure occurred early Wednesday and Carmichael staff notified him at 7:30 a.m .
Crews worked on installing a power generator unit Wednesday afternoon and according to Dean, the gym will be up and running Thursday. However, the 50 meter pool and steam room will remain unusable as they will be without power. The women’s locker room will be open for use, but under less than perfect lighting conditions.
“The generator has more capacity than the actual amount of power we would get from the transformer,” Dean said. “The gym will be running at full capacity while on the generator.”
Although the plan of when to reinstall the new breaker is still in the works, maintenance crews expect the spare breaker to arrive this afternoon.
According to Dean, engineers will take Carmichael Gymnasium off the generator and will reinstall the breaker so the building can go back onto the energy grid sometime Saturday morning. He said this date is still pending.
According to Colby, the University will not upgrade the breaker system due to the prolonged decommission of the gym the replacement of the breaker would require.
The circuit breaker failure, which occurred due to overheating issues, affected no other buildings.
Carmichael Gymnasium will resume normal services and activities once the generator is fully installed.
