One moment you are irritatingly hot, the next shivering cold. The heater is on when it’s warm outside, the air-conditioning when it’s cool, and with Facilities Management in the temperature control booth, students across campus are feeling the effects of this interim seasonal period.
“I was sleeping with three comforters before they turned the heat on,” said Weinberg senior Pia Miller, a Kemper Hall resident. “And then it got hot outside and the heat went on mystically. Then I was too hot because there was no way to adjust the heater. It is just five degrees or 95.”
To make sense of the hot-cold dilemma, Facilities Management regulates student complaints and works with University Housing to make heating decisions.
“(University) Housing makes the call on when to start heat,” said Dale Kovaric, assistant chief of operations for Facilities Management.
Then Facilities Management sends out crews to turn on all heating in the dorms. From there on, the buildings are self-regulated, adjusting heat flow according to outside temperature.
“It is a struggle every year here,” said Kovaric. “Especially during ‘Indian summer’ days.”
Chris Mioton, a Weinberg sophomore, didn’t even know if the heat was on in Ayers College of Commerce and Industry, so he wasn’t yet getting irritated by its fluctuations.
“It is annoying,” he said. “I turn (the heater) up to five and I can’t really feel anything come out. It means I need to put more sheets on my bed, but it is not that much of a hassle.”
There is no easy fix to heating troubles. There are many differences among dorm heating systems. Some operate on water, others on steam. Some have manual controls, others no control. Sources of heating water vary and some dorms, such as Bobb and McCulloch halls, are digitally controlled by a computer that is linked to central management.
With these complexities, Facilities Management has difficulty controlling all dorm heat at the same time. Most dorms on automatic systems programmed to adjust heat based on outside temperature. But when there are spikes in temperature, it may be cold in the morning and warm during the day, so residual heat left in the system still is circulated around the dorm by the afternoon.
“It just sucks because it is real cold out now and if I go back to my room (the heat) is probably not on,” Miller said. “If you leave it on all day everything will melt.”
When heat is too intense, there could be a problem with the actual mechanics of the heating system, in which case, Kovaric said he urges all students to inform their resident assistant so a crew will come out to correct the problem.
