Several scheduled steam shut downs on central campus have left some students out in the cold. The most recent shut down was scheduled for the Tues. before Thanksgiving break a lasted until Wed. morning.
During the shut downs, heat to buildings was shut off, leading to dipping temperatures in many on campus buildings.
The steam had to be shut down because a problem was discovered in an underground steam pipe, “We had a leak in a buried steam condensate pipe,” Mark Anderson, Manager of Maintenance Operations said. This pipe ran from the co-generation plant located near Langdon Woods, over to central campus, delivering heat and hot water. The pipe traveled next to Weeks Street, and alongside the non-traditional student apartments.
The saga of the steam pipe repair lasted nearly two weeks, “During the initial shutdown on Nov. 18, when the pipe was first uncovered, our staff discovered that the pipe was corroded far worse than expected,” Anderson said.
“The leak needed to be repaired promptly in order to prevent additional damage, to prevent hazardous conditions and to prevent energy loss,” Anderson said.
By the time the repairs were finished on Nov. 26, nearly thirty feet of steam pipe had been replaced.
Most buildings on campus were affected. The buildings that were not affected were mainly buildings that have their own furnaces for heat and hot water were not affected by the steam shut down. Langdon Woods was not affected by any of the steam shut downs either.
Physical plant received some complaints from students during the steam shut downs, “We received a couple of phone calls and a couple of email messages during the first shut down,” Anderson said, “These were more like inquiries than they were complaints.”
Most of the complaints were in regard to the times that the shut downs were scheduled. “Most everybody seemed to understand that the shut down was both unavoidable and necessary,” Anderson said.
In addition to the scheduled steam shut downs, other on campus buildings have had unrelated heating problems, ” We had a heat pump fail in Belknap early yesterday [Tues., Dec. 1] morning. This was unrelated to the shutdown last week. The heat pump has been repaired,” Anderson said.
As of now, future shut downs have not been planned, ” Of course these last shut-downs were not planned until we realized there was a problem,” Anderson said.