Refrigeration mechanics had to call an audible. With the clock ticking down before Illini football recruiting visits, someone had to “figure it out” at the Henry Dale and Betty Smith Football Center. The need was a real puzzler: how do you build and install two 8-foot-tall cryo freeze chambers, outfitted with neon striping glowing lights and able to hit -110 F in wind chill thanks … Continue reading Ice Cold Players
Another way F&S is enmeshed into the university, like stars in the sky: history. F&S is home to the university’s historic preservation officer, Dennis Craig. He’s a walking, talking history book when it comes to what has happened on campus since it was called Illinois Industrial University, dating to the late 1800s and can bring some context to almost any site, building, location, or notable … Continue reading Touring and Histories with Dennis Craig
The Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory (IBRL) is getting a lot of attention lately. If you’ve seen Illini athletics on television, you may have seen this: At IBRL, basically, companies and researchers use the facility to ferment things under different conditions to find new products that can be made of local crops like corn and soybeans. Basically, the building has giant metal containers, each with an … Continue reading IBReaL: BJ Glasa at Work
Hot or cold: pipefitters and refrigeration mechanics find solutions. And shifting from hot to cold was exactly the strategy, too, in a project at CERL, the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory. This collection of facilities is where the US Army Corps of Engineers conduct operations for the Department of Defense (DoD). CERL is described as the “premier center for developing technologies that provide high-quality facilities and … Continue reading Shop Spotlight: Pipefitters and Refrigeration Mechanics
Welcome to Campus F&S welcomes students, faculty, staff, and the larger community to campus. More students than ever—the current freshman class is the largest in U. of I. history—have more ways to recognize their time and place. One way to properly grow and foster common identity and communicate our values is rather simple: signage. In 2023, F&S led the process of completely re-doing all exterior … Continue reading INSIDER Magazine: New Hellos
The Urbana campus is home to more than 18,000 trees. For years, F&S has helped maintain a publicly-available online database of all trees on campus through “TreeKeeper,” seen here: https://go.fs.illinois.edu/trees. Now, imagine all those leaves… An afternoon with a rake, a few bags, and a rewarding warm apple cider won’t be enough to clear all those leaves. No, F&S Grounds workers use different, stronger tactics. … Continue reading Can you be-LEAF it?
Woody Bagwell, F&S insulators foreperson, knows the importance of keeping it tight. His team can find themselves anywhere on campus, from the underground steam tunnels to up on top of a roof. Insulators go wherever the pipes are. And on the Urbana campus, chilled water and steam are the primary arteries by which buildings are heated and cooled. Insulators work makes those pipes keep their … Continue reading Shop Spotlight: Insulators Cover It All
The F&S laborer-electricians shop has one primary job: keep the lights on. That’s everywhere on the Urbana campus – in classrooms, offices, laboratories, exterior lights, and even the Ice Arena. Bulbs of all sorts, shapes, and sizes can be found all over campus, and the laborer-electricians are quick to respond when a light goes out. Every year, laborer-electricians visit the Ice Arena and install new … Continue reading Shop Spotlight: Laborer-Electricians Keep the Lights On
Ah, sports! There’s speed, strength, balance, timing and guts… but there’s also that fun scoreboard that may keep kids occupied or hype up the crazies. Without the F&S electricians shop, those giant, colorful, engaging scoreboards wouldn’t operate. Although installed by Daktronics, a leader in scoreboards and video and digital signage, you need a primary source of electricity to light up the score, show hype videos, … Continue reading Shop Spotlight: Electricians Keep the Score
When you’re an elevator mechanic, you’re always testing. That’s what these F&S experts do yearly at every one of the 360 cars, dumbwaiters, and chairlifts on campus. When testing, elevator mechanics basically want to make sure that governors, locks, brakes, and doors all operate as they should – the car shouldn’t go too high or too low, should stop at the right place when called, … Continue reading Shop Spotlight: Elevator Mechanics Talk Testing
