Final daze for the old "chiller-boiler" at the Plainfield Public Library

Yep, that's what they called it, the "chiller-boiler" -- a term that always made me laugh.

The old unit has been struggling for a few years. Eventually the cement-encased heating and cooling plant, planted in the rear parking lot, had to be supplanted. The old equipment could no longer keep up and chiller-boiler took on new meaning: it chilled library workers in winter and parboiled bibliophiles during the swoon of summer.

Yes, the chiller-boiler's days were numbered and the numbers ran out yesterday.

--Barbara Todd Kerr

KEYWORDS: library