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Solving a Temperature Control Issue
A Problem Solution Essay
By: Janet Worley
English 111
Emily Dexter
March 30, 2009

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Temperature control at the Eye Center of Indiana used to be a real problem. By
temperature control, I mean the fact that our waiting room and front office was an emphasized
replica of the outside temperature, while our back office and exam rooms were the complete
opposite. Each morning I would wake up and decide how many layers of clothing I’d wear,
depending on which part of the office I’d be working in. Not only were our employees affected,
but so were our patients and the environment. We were constantly hearing complaints or
wasting energy by raising and lowering the thermostat.
The Eye Center of Indiana is located in a building that was once a filling station. In the
early 1960’s, Dr. Hans Wilbrandt transformed the old gas station into a doctor’s office and there
had been few additional improvements made until recently. His son, Dr. Thierry Wilbrandt who
now owns and runs the practice decided in October of 2008 that it was time to make some long
overdue changes. The first issue he decided to correct was the temperature control. He hired a
general contractor who doubles as a maintenance man, Doug Milton. Doug and Dr. Wilbrandt
agreed that front office improvements would not only benefit our employees, patients, and
expenses, but would also put the office one step further towards going green. That is, The Eye
Center’s contribution to the environment by using less energy. Doug came up with three
solutions to our temperature problem.
First, Doug took a good look around. “The first thing I noticed was that you could
literally feel air coming in through the cracks of the doors and windows, this was our number one
issue” Doug recalls on his first thoughts of what needed to be done. Although he was capable of
doing the windows on his own, they would need to call in back-up for the doors. The set of
double doors were actually located interiorly instead of exteriorly. This meant that every time
someone would go through them, whatever the air temperature was outside would pour into the

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waiting room. Once the doors were closed, due to the deteriorating weather strips air was still
coming in an abnormal rate. According to The Webster Merriam online dictionary weather
stripping is a strip of material to cover the joint of a door or window and the sill, casing, or
threshold so as to exclude rain, snow, and cold air (2009). Interior double doors is an outdated
construction, after getting numerous estimates on the best possible solution for the doors, Doug
concluded that moving the double doors to the exterior would be the most effective in keeping
the air outside where it belonged. One advantage to this solution was that we’d be able to keep
the first set of glass doors where they were, and would only have to purchase an additional set to
be installed outside.

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weather strip. (2009). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
Retrieved March 31, 2009, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weather strip

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