Reston residents are becoming increasingly frustrated by the cooling system that serves properties around Lake Anne, saying equipment issues and unresponsive management have forced them to endure intense heat this summer without relief.
Residents who shared their experiences with FFXnow say temperatures in their homes have climbed up to 85 degrees or higher this week after one of the chillers that Reston RELAC uses to cool water from Lake Anne shut down last Friday (June 20).
“It has been terrible,” one resident said. “My home is at 85 degrees when I left for work [Wednesday] morning. Relac has not been reliable for service or information. We are all suffering especially those with health conditions and children.”
RELAC issues attributed to failed pump
Though the stalled chiller was cleaned and restarted the following morning, RELAC has been unable to operate a second chiller due to a broken pump that’s needed to pull up the lake water, Reston Lake Anne Air Conditioning President Mark Waddell said in recent messages to customers.
Without the second chiller, the system can’t produce enough chilled water when temperatures exceed 90 degrees, as they have for the past few days.
After investigating the issue over the weekend, Innovative Mechanical Systems, a Maryland-based contractor that’s in talks to take over RELAC, finished installing a rental intake pump yesterday afternoon (Wednesday).
“I was told we were producing more chilled water around 4:00 p.m.,” Waddell said in the June 25 update, confirming that two chillers were now back in operation.
When reached for comment, Innovative Mechanical Systems directed FFXnow to Waddell, who didn’t respond to comment requests via email or phone by press time.
Even if the repairs work, however, residents say they’re frustrated by the management’s limited communications and apparent lack of urgency in addressing the equipment issues, despite forecasts anticipating dangerously hot conditions this week.
“There seems to be no emergency response plan in place, no weekend technicians, no spare parts, no backup capacity. Just passive updates saying they’ll look into it on a weekday,” another resident told FFXnow. “In my view, this isn’t just poor service. it’s neglectful. During a heat wave, this kind of delay can pose real health risks.”
How RELAC got here
Regulated by the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC), RELAC was installed in the 1960s and required for residential clusters and businesses in the Lake Anne area under Reston Association’s deed, which prohibits those properties from installing individual air-conditioning units unless they obtain a medical exception.
More than 600 residences and businesses currently use the cooling system, including 343 townhomes, 258 condominiums and 25 commercial units, according to RA.
RELAC has experienced some tumult recently after its operator at the time announced in December 2023 that it would shut down due to increased costs and customers allegedly not paying their bills.
While a referendum to repeal RA’s ban on individual HVAC units failed, a group of residents led by Simon McKeown formed a new nonprofit entity called Relac Water Cooling or springRELAC that operated the utility during the 2024 cooling season, which generally runs from May through October.
Multiple residents praised McKeown’s leadership of RELAC, with one resident in the Vantage Hill condominiums calling it the “best experience we’ve had” in the six years he and his wife have been on the system.
RELAC customers say McKeown kept them informed, regularly and clearly communicating any issues, and he also began running all chillers at the start of the season — something that other operators haven’t done.
“Instead of preparing for summer heat in advance, they intentionally run only one chiller early in the season to cut costs,” the Vantage Hill resident said. “As a result, when the second chiller is finally needed, they haven’t taken the time to ensure it’s functioning properly. This year, that has left us — and many others — without adequate cooling during a heat wave.”
McKeown’s death on Dec. 1, 2024 left the future of RELAC once again in limbo. Waddell told customers on March 31 that he was working to transfer ownership of the utility to Innovative Mechanical Systems, which had expressed interest in taking over.
The transfer “is now imminent” after being previously slowed by regulatory issues, Waddell said in his June 25 update. He apologized for not addressing the defective lake intake pump sooner, saying the issue was left over from springRELAC.
Inefficiency an ongoing issue with RELAC, residents say
RELAC has long been unreliable and inefficient, according to several current and former residents.
“Unfortunately RELAC had never been that efficient,” one woman told FFXnow. “I lived in Hickory cluster from 1966-2014 until we sold the house after my mom passed away in 2015. My parents always complained about it . If you know those houses the top floor never cooled down.”
Another woman who’s lived in Reston for three years says RELAC “has been nothing but a struggle.” In addition to getting inadequate air-conditioning, she’s dealing with a cracked pipe, but an outside plumber called to fix the leak said they weren’t permitted to work on the system.
“So we’re stuck with a broken system and no one seemingly able to fix it!” she said.
Even compared to previous years, though, this summer has been a “disaster,” according to residents.
The Vantage Hill resident, who has temporarily relocated during the current heat wave, noted that the community had raised more than $80,000 last year to help McKeown make improvements to RELAC.
The upgrades appeared to have initially worked, but now, no one is sure where the rest of the money went or why the improvements “haven’t translated into better performance this year,” he told FFXnow.
“It feels like resident comfort and safety have taken a back seat to budget concerns,” he said, adding that his criticisms are aimed at the utility’s leadership, not its “knowledgeable, helpful, and hard-working” service staff and technicians.
Another resident who bought a condo in Reston about a year ago says they wouldn’t have made the purchase “had we known how terrible RELAC’s service would be.” As of yesterday, her condo was sitting at 86 degrees, though it’s regularly around 76-78 degrees even when the system is fully operational.
“We have a family member whose health is compromised and we will be applying for an exception to install reliable air conditioning,” she said.
The Lake Anne of Reston Condominium Association (LARCA), which manages many of the affected properties, says it was informed about the issues with RELAC over the weekend but doesn’t have the authority to provide financial assistance or temporary accommodations to individual residents.
Those expenses should be “addressed through individual homeowners’ insurance policies,” says Ridge Samala, the condominium division director for Community Management Corporation, the company behind LARCA.
“LARCA is sympathetic to the inconvenience experienced due to the recent RELAC service issues during this heat wave,” Samala said in a statement to FFXnow. “Under the Virginia Condominium Act, common expense funds may only be used for the benefit of the condo’s property, land, and its ownership as a whole.”
LARCA doesn’t have any ownership or control over RELAC, which operates as a separate utility service provider, Samala stressed.
RELAC service map via Hunter Mill District supervisor’s office
