Several students living in the White Mountain Apartment Complex were greeted with a note on their doors last Friday saying that the hot water would be unavailable until late afternoon Saturday. The cause of the hot water shut-down Homecoming weekend (and the reason for sporadic hot water since) is a faulty hot water heater that serves WMAC Apartments 85-102.
An emergency phone call was placed Saturday morning, resulting in a contractor coming to temporarily fix the defective water heater until new parts can be ordered.
Manager of Campus Maintenance Operations, Mark Anderson, said, “Parts for the water heater have been ordered. These parts will provide for a more permanent solution. Once those parts arrive, hopefully within the next couple of weeks, we will need to schedule one more shut-down so they can be installed.”
“I know that it’s not anyone’s fault as to why we keep losing hot water, but it was especially inconvenient over the weekend, as I had a scholarship ceremony to attend and it was a formal event,” said Heather Pitt, a senior Childhood Studies major and a resident of WMAC.
The on going construction on campus has also added to the hot water loss problem. “The Infrastructure Central project is primarily an upgrade to the campus steam system,” Anderson stated. “The steam is used for heat and hot water to most of the campus. As new sections of pipe, valves and hoses are installed, the steam has to be shut down while the workmen connect them. This has affected different buildings at different times around campus.”
The completion of the infrastructure project should end most hot water shut-downs throughout campus, but, “there will be a few more before the end of the project,” Anderson said.
“We continue to work closely with the contractors and the engineers to minimize the construction’s impact on the campus heat and hot water and to coordinate some sort of schedule. It is often difficult when they, literally, dig up problems,” continued Anderson. “The goal is to have an improved steam system that is more energy efficient and one that will reduce unplanned outages.”