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“You don’t hear much about us, and that’s good because it means that things are just fine,” says Mario Bouchard, director of Physical Resources Service. While this university service is seldom in the news, it is nonetheless one that plays a fundamental role in the life of everyone on campus.
With an annual operating budget of $16 million, the service’s approximately 130 permanent employees, along with architectural, engineering and building contractors, oversee construction of new buildings, optimal use of space and energy efficiency, as well as sanitary and general maintenance on campus, including landscaping and snow removal.
“We need a large team to keep what is, in fact, a small town running,” says Bouchard. “In spite of all our construction projects, a significant part of our work is the operation and maintenance of our buildings. We rely on some 125 staff from four suppliers to clean our 25 main buildings, 42 “grey houses” and five residences, as well as on our own technicians in mechanics, instrumentation, electrical systems and so on.” The service employs, full-time, two locksmiths and one elevator repairman for 74 devices on campus.
The service ensures that good environmental practices are incorporated in the management of various facilities. The campus’s power station, for example, uses natural gas to produce almost a sixth of the electricity needed by the University of Ottawa. This efficient and cost-effective way to generate energy not only cuts the institution’s electricity bill, but also reduces its demand on the Ontario power grid.
Meanwhile, wastewater from research aquariums is reused in central air-conditioning cooling towers. Some 10 million litres of water annually — the daily equivalent of an average residential swimming pool — is recycled.
Also, worms kept in a large freezer-like container near Lamoureux Hall swallow the waste from the University Centre cafeteria and transform it into compost, later used for campus landscaping.
“There are hundreds of examples just like this,” says Pierre de Gagné, engineer in charge of energy and environment. “Our efforts in reduction, reuse and recycling have earned us industry-wide recognition.”
The “gateway” to Physical Resources Service is the call centre, widely known by its “2222” phone extension, says the centre’s co-ordinator Gilles Laferrière. The centre can also be contacted via email at sdiprs@uOttawa.ca. A recent innovation allows regular clients to use a personal account to prepare and submit a work order online.
“We deal with all kinds of problems, from a burned out light bulb to a request for transportation to a situation causing lack of comfort in a classroom. We are also responsible for responding to such emergencies as water leaks, equipment breakdowns, and any situation that could hinder the proper operation of an administrative or academic unit.”
The centre’s three full-time co-ordinators treat 60,000 work orders every year. Their main function, explains Laferrière, is to refer the requests to the appropriate service or workers.
