Stow-Munroe Falls Schools Beat the Heat With Portable Air Conditioning Units

STOW, OH — While some schools in the Cleveland area were closing due to extreme heat, Stow-Munroe Falls was installing a solution which kept their schools open.

Stow-Munroe Falls City Schools have six older schools without air conditioning and knew they needed to do something.

"It was hard to be in the building, especially if you were in an upstairs classroom. Now, at any point in time, the temperature is essentially comfortable no matter where you're at," Lakeview Intermediate School Principal Andrew Yanchunas told cleveland19news.

Kids were getting headaches and parents were keeping their children home because of the heat said Stow-Munroe Falls Director of Operations Mark Fritz.

Classroom temperatures were exceeding 90 degrees.

The district came up with a way to cool the buildings rather than close them or deal with the extreme heat and the negative consequences associated with it.

The solution was to use portable air conditioning units that are normally used to cool things off at construction sites. The cool-air ductwork is attached to second-story windows and the air air is pushed throughout the building with portable fans.

The district has worked the seasonal rental cost of the portable units into the budget for the next five years.

For more, view the @cleveland19news video below:

Photo by Stow photographer via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0