BLOOMINGDALE — Amid a discussion about the future of Bloomingdale Elementary School, Saranac Lake Central School District Facilities Director Vernon James shared some chilling news about the school building at last week’s Wednesday board meeting.

A malfunction in the heating system had caused several classrooms in the building to fall below freezing temperatures during the extreme cold two weekends ago. James said quick action and good timing allowed the event to have minimal impact on the school building and the students who go there.

The previous Sunday saw lows of -25 and highs of only 3. He woke up, checked the building management system on his computer and saw that several classrooms were showing temperatures between 30 and 50 degrees. The heating system was not operational.

James said the building management system’s heat production is calculated by the outdoor temperature. That outdoor sensor malfunctioned, did not trigger the alarm system and told the computer that it was 70 degrees outside.

He quickly overrode the setting and got the building heating back up. Fortunately, the district took a snow day on that Monday to dig out of the powdery snowfall. Had it not, James did not think Bloomingdale Elementary could have had school that day.

“It was opportune to have a snow day that day,” James said.

He’s also glad he caught it early.

The temperature drop did not freeze up the water pipes, though it did break some heaters.

“Luckily, we had no property damage from splits, with floods or leakage,” James said,

He shut off the broken pipes in heaters which vent to the outside.

James said several rooms froze up — mostly in the new wing, with a few in the old wing.

He said they lost four coils in the heating units.

James said the district will likely not need to pay for these repairs. A contractor was working on the building management system the week before and “owned up to it,” he said.