Air Conditioning - HELP!!! Sweltering workplace!!!!! Need advice!!!

This is a long story so here goes….

I work nights at a small distribution center with about 20 other people. It has just been hellishly hot & humid here lately & a few weeks ago we starited “adjusting” the thermostat to compensate. Well, the maint guy at work (who quite frankly is an obtuse person to deal with) got wind of this & put a lockbox around the thermostat & set the temp to75 degrees …. which is just too hot a temperature to work in. We put up with this for about a week & we just couldn’t take it any more so we managed to figure out how to unlock the thermostat lockbox & put the temps back at a tolerable level.
Well, the maint guy ( being the miserable & vindictive SOB he is) figured out what we were doing & somehow (we don’t know how) managed to permanently set the temp to 85 degrees now . It is now absolutely sweltering at work now. People started bringing in fans from home. A few have started talking about quitting. We have made complaint after complaint to management & nothing has been done. We are all at our breaking point…. So we decided to do something about it (that is why I am writing this).
We don’t know what he (the maint guy) did. The thermostat turns the outside AC unit off & on, but the air coming thru the vents doesn’t get cooler. We have found the AHU (air handling unit) & it is working … it is blowing air to our work area. In the smaller rooms the air is nice & cold , but in the area we work in is a constant 85 degrees.
We have looked for switches, timers, hidden secret thermostats & have come up empty.

The AC unit is just your average central air type unit you would find outside a regular house. The air handler is a BIG old unit , but there are no controls on it that would allow you to manipulate the air temps that we can find.

We just cant figure out how he is able to control the temp in our work area . The thermostat isn’t digital…. It is just a dial. Like I said it turns the outside AC unit off & on, but the air coming thru the vents doesn’t get any cooler.
We have talked about trying to get a professional HVAC man to come in , but no guy is gonna come in to a jobsite to work without management permission. So that Isnt gonna happen…. Unless we can find some guy & pay him 500 bucks under the table to come figure it out.

All we want to know is how the maint guy is able to limit the temps without using the thermostat? The funny thing is… the thermostat works…. Up to a certain temp….but wont go lower no matter how low you set it.

Can anyone help or offer any insight?

Hard to say what he did to you guys and gals there. I have put a tstat in the duct work and set it. that would control the temp on you by turning off the Y wire or compressor there. Then also like we control a walk in cooler or box put a pressure switch in the out door unit and that turns the compressor on and off by the temp in the cooler or coil. Dont know you have to look. You say the fan runs on and off at the tstat . thats the G wire so look for and at the Y wire back to the compressor that turns it on and off.

ED :thinker:

Who knows what he did. You need to get together and go to management and explain to them that the uncomfortable enviroment is causing a decrease in productivity. Or you guys could start buying him lunch and become his friend and make him believe he is the superior maintenance man he thinks he is.