Faulty heating plagues old dorms

With water heater failures, broken HVAC systems and drafty windows, some students have experienced the bitter cold of winter inside their residential halls.

Wolman Hall experienced a building-wide failure in water heating during and after the blizzard.

“Residents were giving feedback that the water was not up to the temperature which they needed to shower,” Tommy Koh, the RA for Wolman 6 East, said. “This was an issue we observed first on the east side. In my conversation with other RAs, I knew this happened both on the east and the west side with residents in various suites all reporting the issue. So it seems to be an issue that was building-wide.”

After this issue was identified and reported to the Housing Office, the water heating system was fixed in two days and has since been operating normally.

Building-wide issues are not frequent, but many students from the older residential halls have reported sporadic problems with heating.

Freshman Ank Agarwal, a resident in AMR I, suffered from broken heating in his room before the Housing Office relocated him.

Celine Arpornsuksant, also a freshman in AMR I, experienced heating failure in her room in the beginning of winter.

“There’s no heat coming from the vents in my room so I bought a small space heater because my room would be around 48 degrees at night, which is super super cold,” she said.

But drafty windows in dorms are the primary concern of students.

Kimberly Wang, a resident in McCoy, reported the insulation problem inside her dorm.

“I live in McCoy and it’s pretty old. So a lot of the windows are made of wood and there are a lot of cracks in them,” she said. “So oftentimes you can hear the wind whistling through the cracks. It’s really hard to keep the warmth inside the room. Also, at one time... it started flooding when it rained, which was not fun. It wasn’t fun to find a waterfall in your room.”

Siwen Zhao, also in Wolman, has experienced difficulties with both heating and insulation.

“The heater in my room is really loud and doesn’t seem to be very effective,” she said. “The heater blows directly towards my roommate’s bed, so she does not like to turn it on. My bed is right next to the window, and there is often a draft coming from the middle of the window, which makes me feel really cold, especially at night.”

Senior Nikita Singh, the co-director of the Sustainable Hopkins Infrastructure Program (SHIP) and former president of Students for Environmental Action (SEA), confirmed that windows remain a problem for students.

“Every year in SHIP we pretty much have someone say, ‘We need to replace our windows.’ A lot of the dorms are so old and have single-paned windows, which are not very well-insulated,” Singh said. “A big thing is trying to replace them with double-paned windows. But that’s obviously a very expensive project. The problem is, we have really old buildings on campus which are kind of hard to renovate.”

She added that there has been some discussion of trying to add insulation to the sides of the windows as a temporary measure until they can be replaced.

According to Ashley Pennington, the program manager of the Office of Sustainability, the Campus Master Plan outlines cycles of renovating and replacing facilities on campus, which is an ongoing process.

“Many projects aim to use economy of scale, meaning we don’t aim to replace a few windows of a building at a time,” Pennington wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “Unless there is an issue that requires otherwise, the goal is to plan long term to larger scale renovation projects to consolidate disruption of a space, and be as efficient as possible with time and finances.”

Tracey Angel, the director of Housing and Operations, also addressed the issues with heating and insulation in an email to The News-Letter.

“There are different HVAC systems in different buildings. Some are heat pumps associated with specific rooms or units, and others are building wide systems. Heat pumps are checked 3 times per year when filters are changed and building wide system are checked annually,” she wrote. ”Of course, if a problem is called or emailed into the Housing Office, the HVAC system or heat pumps are checked quickly.”

Angel added that students should make an effort to learn how the thermostats in their rooms work.

“At move in there were cards in the student living units with heat pumps, which explained how to operate the heat and AC. The instructions are very simple,” she wrote. “A common mistake is for students to adjust their temperature setting while it is on cooling in January/February. It should be adjusted on the heat cycle.”

Angel encouraged students to report any issues they may be having to the appropriate office.

“Most of the time, if there are window issues, it is related to windows not being completely closed or it is the jam liners. The first thing a student should do is make sure the window is closed by holding the top of the window all the way up when they are locking the window,” she wrote. ”If there is still a draft problem, we encourage students to call the housing facilities office or go to the Housing and Dining web site and report the problem online. Maintenance will follow up and make the necessary repairs.”

Although the housing and maintenance offices expect students to report issues they encounter in order to fix the problems, some students have tried to fix the issues themselves. Others feel that trying to get the problems fixed requires too much effort.

Students who have contacted the Housing Office generally have a positive evaluation of the maintenance they received.

“I think the Housing Office has definitely been very responsive, especially Anthony at the maintenance part of the Housing Office,” Koh said.

However, misunderstanding is still common. Kimberly Wang said she reported that a light went out in her room to maintenance, who then replaced a perfectly fine light and left the broken one unfixed.

“I think [the problem] is really getting a good form to submit so that people know what is the right thing to fix,” Wang said. Pennington highlighted the importance of communication.

“Our facilities department’s first priorities are customer service and making sure campus is operational, safe and comfortable for our students, staff and faculty, such as the round the clock work to clear campus and keep it functional during the recent blizzard,” she wrote.

“From the technical side, Facilities has been moving toward a mobile work order system, which helps reduce time required to process and assign work orders to be completed, resulting in quicker response rates, and a lot less paper!”