August 30, 2006 - The San Francisco Board of Appeals made a decision today concerning a challenge to Lakewood Apartments' project to install continuously running exhaust fans in 480 of the 721 apartment units.

In August of 2004, Lakewood installed continuously running exhaust fans in 11 apartment units as part of what they termed a "test." The exhaust fans, the product name is "Humidex," were touted as dehumidifiers. According to Ross Wilkinson, a professional engineer as well as a tenant, the exhaust fans are not dehumidifiers and running them could increase or decrease the humidity in apartments depending on the moisture content of the outside air because the air that is exhausted will be replaced in equal amount by outside air. In response to the 2004 test, a number of tenants, some part of the test, signed a letter in September of 2004 addressed to the apartment owners requesting that they abandon the exhaust fan project. That letter was followed by a letter from Mr. Wilkinson explaining to the owners the engineering reasons why the exhaust fans would not achieve their supposed objective of reducing damp walls and mold and providing alternate recommendations for building modifications that would accomplish such stated objectives. No responses were ever received to either of those letters.

In February of this year, it was observed that Lakewood had begun to install more of the exhaust fans. Because they again had not taken out a building permit, the authorities were notified and the work was stopped. When Lakewood finally did obtain a building permit, the permit was challenged at the San Francisco Board of Appeals by Mr. Wilkinson, represented by attorney Marcus Hall. The appeal was founded upon both legal and engineering arguments. The legal arguments were that the exhaust fan cannot be approved without plans, specifications and code-specified forms submitted by a professional engineer or architect as required by the state energy code and that the exhaust fans inherently violate that code such that they could never be approved anyway. The engineering arguments were that there is no need for dehumidification in the first place, that the device is not a dehumidifier, that it makes excessive noise and that it will waste heat and drive up tenants' electric bills. To assure maximum credibility to his engineering arguments, Mr. Wilkinson hired an independent heating, ventilating and air conditioning engineering design firm (Mr. Wilkinson had no previous acquaintance with the firm) Greg Booth Engineering, Inc., of Richmond, California, which provided a letter opinion describing when it is and when it is not appropriate to operate exhaust fans in an occupied building. Mr. Greg Booth, a registered mechanical engineer, stated that "...exhausting a living room would be like leaving the living room window open...," and made recommendations similar to those Mr. Wilkinson had made to the owners in 2004 to minimize damp walls and resulting mold: adding insulation to the walls and replacing single-pane windows with double-pane.

The first hearing was held July 19^th. That hearing was continued when the then representative of the Department of Building Inspection (DBI) was unprepared to describe to the Board the justifications for DBI having granted the building permit in light of the potential building code violations being argued by Mr. Wilkinson. At the subsequent hearing, August 30^th, another DBI representative presented DBI's case. He described the Humidex as an unlisted device made in Canada and that Lakewood had been compelled by DBI to have the device inspected and tested by an independent company qualified to do so in lieu of being listed. He went on to state that DBI agrees that makeup air will be outside air and that, therefore, there will be a price to be paid by the tenants in increased energy costs to heat the makeup air. He said he understood that the effectiveness of the device as a dehumidifier had been questioned but that DBI had no opinion as to the effectiveness of the device one way or another. He then went on to present a letter that he said he had received an hour before the hearing from the California Energy Commission that contradicted Mr. Wilkinson's legal argument that Lakewood's project falls under the state energy code. The DBI representative said that, on the basis of that letter, DBI would retract an earlier condition put on the permit that the devices include an on/off switch.

Lakewood's attorney presented a letter that supposedly revealed that the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development was implementing the Humidex product at some of its properties in the Los Angeles area.

Several members of the Board expressed serious reservations with the project in light of the waste of energy and noise concerns and expressed interest in the inclusion of an on/off switch. Lakewood Apartments' attorney then stepped forward and notified the Board that Lakewood would volunteer to install an on/off switch if the project would then be allowed to proceed. The Board accepted this proposition and the permit suspension was ordered lifted contingent upon the installation of the on/off switch, inclusion of an appropriate back-draft damper and caulking.

After the hearing, Mr. Wilkinson stated that he was blindsided by both the letter from the Energy Commission and the letter presented by Lakewood Apartments because neither had been filed with the Board or served upon him as required, that the second hearing format had been changed by the Board without advance notice from that described to him by Board staff, depriving him of more than 2/3 of the presentation time expected, causing he and his attorney to scrap their prepared presentations and to have to respond to new documents with insufficient notice. Mr. Wilkinson states that he believes the letter from the Energy Commission is simply incorrect on the question of whether the Humidex is a part of the space conditioning system and therefore covered by the energy code. He says he also finds it "interesting" that Lakewood would want to even pursue this project given that two professional engineers have recommended against it and no such qualified professional has recommended that they proceed. He also points out that the fact that Lakewood is willing to install on/off switches, a concession they were not willing to make previously, appears to prove that it is unimportant to Lakewood as to whether the units actually operate, suggesting that they may have other reasons for the project.

Mr. Wilkinson stated that the order to retrofit an on/off switch is a major victory for all the tenants because they will no longer be forced to listen to the device in their own apartments nor will their heat be wasted against their will. However, they may still have to listen to the device next door and look at the contraption in their own apartments. He was hoping to stop the project totally and prevent the Humidex devices from being installed at all. Mr. Wilkinson says he is reviewing the options that he and other interested tenants have to still accomplish that objective, so the fight may not be over just yet.