Cold Weather Weekend Building Checks

WEEKEND/HOLIDAY BUILDING CHECKS: Weekend/holiday building checks should occur when night temperatures

drop below 20 degrees. The purpose of weekend building checks are to ensure pipes have not frozen and other cold temperature problems with buildings have not occurred that would prevent the building from being operable. When conditions reach this point, weekend and holiday checks should be done twice per day—once in the early morning (before 9:30 am) and once in the evening (after 7:00 pm).

Weekend building checks should not take longer than 20-30 minutes. These building checks are a spot check.

• • A quick walk through of halls

  • A quick check in bathrooms

  • A quick check in main office and entry ways

  • A quick check of boilers and heating systems in the building

Custodian weekly schedules are to incorporate these checks within their 40 hour work week. Overtime (more than 40 hours per week) is not permitted. Custodians should be clocking in/out on the weekends/holidays when making their checks. The computer time clock system should be used, and their time punches in the system will be used to verify their weekend checks.

We suggest you consider working with other schools to coordinate and schedule these checks. It's often times a lot easier to schedule a custodian for these checks in longer intervals when this assignment is shared with more custodians in the same geographic area.

Logs: All boiler and weekend checks should be logged--not just once per day, but all checks each day. This is a state risk

management recommendation for property insurance purposes. Principals should be following up periodically with their custodians and checking to make sure the custodians are actually making their boiler and weekend checks and the logs accurately reflect all checks being done.