Water In LA Hotel Tank Deemed Safe After Do-Not-Drink Order

cbs/ap ^ | February 21, 2013 3:05 PM

[BenLurkin]

Authorities say a test of a Los Angeles hotel water tank where a Canadian tourist’s body was found this week didn’t find any live bacteria that would cause illness.

The test was conducted Tuesday after 21-year-old Elisa Lam was found wedged into one of four water cisterns atop the downtown Cecil Hotel.

The county Department of Public Health has, however, issued a do-not-drink order, and only water for toilets is flowing for hotel guests.

County health official Angelo Bellomo says chlorine in the water likely killed any bacteria in the tank where Lam’s body was found.

[this_ol_patriot]

Wood tanks are cheaper, they don’t corrode and they don’t give water a metallic taste. Plus, wood tanks do a better job of minimizing the effects of seasonal temperature fluctuations, they don’t need heating. There are well-maintained redwood tanks in NYC that are 90 years old, you’ll never get that out of a metal tank.

http://www.rosenwachtank.com/

[wideminded]

Thanks for the link.

[hecticskeptic]

Thanks for the link. I think that the pictures there are the first that I've seen from that angle. Small access door...appears to be smaller than the width of the shoulders of the guy standing in front of it. Those tanks appear to be painted... one would expect that they'd be made of stainless steel if used for potable water, no?

[varyouga]

1. Wood is cheaper, lighter and insulates better. You don't even need freeze protection for a wood tank in NYC.

2. The tanks are often on elevated platforms to increase pressure to the upper floors. The direct sun helps keep them from freezing. It would cost a fortune to put them in a pretty, accessible, structurally-sound enclosure and heat them. It's also much easier to replace the tank on a wide open platform.

Back in the day, aesthetics took far back seat to low cost. Especially in certain neighborhoods. A super trendy neighborhood today could have been a bleak industrial zone when the building was built. Manhattan once had entire neighborhoods full of factories, open markets, slaughterhouses, etc.

[varyouga]

It looks like they painted over the “hourly” sign to make the place look more classy...

[varyouga]

“Actually, the size of the tanks on the roof of the hotel in question makes me wonder how well thought through this is from a structural perspective. Are you saying it is relatively common to use accessible tanks like what they have on the roof of this hotel?”

If the structural guy knows about the tanks, they would design the structure accordingly. The biggest problem in construction is lack of communication and fighting between trades. For example: when a plumber realizes he needs tanks, he might forget to notify structural of the additional load. Or he might send an email that gets lost and the finger pointing begins.

This type of design with roof tanks is typically found in warmer climates like LA. In cold places like NYC, most tanks are wooden or in heated enclosures.

“With more modern buildings, do they not go without tanks at all (or just small tanks) but just use pumps at strategic elevation points that are controlled by variable frequency drives to respond to the building pressure requirements?”

There are such buildings but the ones with high short-term water demand still need tanks. With big enough pumps, the tanks can sit on the ground. You almost always need tanks because most water companies limit how much a single building can draw from the street main. For high rises, this limit is much less than your peak demand so the tank acts as a buffer. The tanks are also typically your source for sprinkler water so they are sized

[GeronL]

“Classy” that word didn’t really cross my mind at all. LOL

[varyouga]

Someone I was working with flew into NYC from the midwest. She decided to stay at the Chelsea Hotel! Not because it was the closest but because it was “historic and edgy”. She was a pretty blonde, no less.

I thought “hey, I guess the place changed after Giuliani” and she said the place looked decent on the outside.

Well, when she finally got to her room there was a junkie smoking crack in her bed saying “5 minutes”. Got another room but figured out the door doesn't really lock. She ended up just barricading the door with furniture and staying one night.

[GeronL]

lol.

Hey, you want edgy!

The floor and mattresses were so stained at the Village Inn in Terrell Texas that the dogs refused to go in there!

[varyouga]

Here’s a review of the Chelsea that had me LOL. By some braindead lib from “Europe”. Notice how everything is said with a qualifier and he/she/it can’t insult this “holy” place:

“We thoroughly enjoyed our stay. Everything everybody has said in previous reviews, both good and bad, are true. The place appears to be utterly charming and the shabby-chic decor was a welcome relief from the blandness of many more modern hotels.

However, on our arrival home we discovered that we had contracted SCABIES. Our doctor confirmed that the most likely source of contamination was the hotel. I was disgusted! I immediately contacted the hotel by email to let them know and began the process of cleaning everything that had possibly been contaminated during our stay.

Suddenly the relaxed approach to cleaning the room - the fact the bed was remade but the sheets not changed, the way the towels were changed but the shower wasn’t scrubbed - didn’t seem so acceptable.”

This place sounds worse than 3rd world. The staff supposedly look homeless

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g60763-d219622-r1119006-Chelsea_Hotel-New_York_City_New_York.html#REVIEWS

[GeronL]

Scuzzy-chic is Cool until you get Scabies!