Adrian Smith <[log in to unmask]> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm interested to hear experiences/feedback from people about just how  
> important it is to have such a facility on the ground floor/basement -  
> ie just how much is that a consideration in a new, purpose-built  
> building? I know of many places (here included) where advanced  
> microscopes are NOT on the ground floor but I'm keen to hear if there  
> are locations where that has been a failure or there have been  
> unexpected complications etc.

We moved in to a new facility a year ago. It is in the sub basement (2
floors below ground) so I can't comment on being in higher floors,
however we have had some serious problems. 

1) A plant room was right next to one of our rooms, to make matters
worse they contractors mounted air conditioning equipment onto a shared
wall. You could feel the wall vibrate. Not a good place to do single
molecule TIRF. 

2) Air conditioning and temperature control. None of our 5 rooms were
properly setup with regards to temperature control. The basic fact was
the the air-con contractors didn't believe that we could really be
considering putting >10kW of heat into a single room, so they only plumb
in 3Kw of cooling. They also took short cuts and didn't factor in
independent control of multiple rooms, just controlling them in
aggregate. 

Both of these issues have been corrected by retrofitting things, but at
substantial cost and lots of inconvenience. 

My take home message of these things is that you really have to hammer
home the required specs with the various levels of university
administrators, architects, contractors and anyone else you can find.

Ian