Residents face heating, water issues over J-term in Wagoner

A broken rooftop HVAC unit and a valve issue caused some Wagoner Hall residents to experience colder rooms and water temperatures during J-term. 

David Tuschen, lead maintenance technician, said one of the two components of the variable refrigerant flow system of the rooftop unit went down. According to Samsung, VRF systems are made up of outdoor units that are connected to multiple indoor units by refrigerant piping, which provides the indoor areas with cooling and heating.

Residents also intermittently reported a lack of hot water and pressure throughout January, which was fixed Feb. 1 after a delayed repair process. Tuschen said a bad mixing valve was the root cause of the issue. 

“I lived in Stavig my freshman year, so knowing that I was going to be living in Wagoner, I was excited,” sophomore Kelsey Fischer said. “But we’ve had so many issues with our power outlets, heat and water, so it has been a little bit frustrating.” 

Whitney Jibben, assistant dean of students for community standards, said each rooftop unit serves multiple rooms, meaning heating issues affected 16 rooms. 

Jibben said a resident first placed a work request regarding failed heat delivery on Friday, Jan. 13. However, because Martin Luther King Jr. Day was on Monday, Jan. 15, the work request was not assigned to a maintenance technician until Jan. 16. Jibben said the rooftop VRF unit was fully repaired by Jan. 19. 

Tuschen said Facility Services does not follow the work report system on weeknights and weekends. Students must call Campus Safety to file emergency maintenance requests during non-business hours, as an officer can connect the student to an on-call technician. 

According to Tuschen, the on-call technician received one call about heating issues on Jan. 13, so he came to campus to provide the student with a temporary heater until regular business hours resumed and the maintenance team could provide a permanent fix. 

“That was what the main delay was,” Tuschen said. “He got one call, he came in, provided that person with a temporary unit and that’s all he heard. So,  he was not aware of the problem.” 

Fischer said she and her roommate began experiencing a lack of heating in their dorm a few days after J-term classes began on Jan. 3. She said her room hovered between 59 and 60 F even though she had the heat set to 80 F. 

On Jan. 17, Maggie McMahon, the Wagoner hall director, sent an email to residents alerting them of technicians’ attempts to repair the issue. The email offered students space heaters on a first-come, first-serve basis. 

“Luckily, I brought back [from winter break] a little space heater that we were gonna put in the bathroom because our bathroom was always freezing cold when we got out of the shower,” Fischer said. 

During the week of Jan. 11-16, the National Weather Service reported extreme cold in the Northern Plains region, with wind chill reaching temperatures of -40 to -60 F. 

In addition to heating outages, some Wagoner students’ rooms also struggled to constistantly supply hot water. 

“At the beginning of J-term, everything was great,” sophomore Catie Ruschmeyer said. “The water was perfect, and then it just started getting cold, but it was [still] lukewarm water.”

Ruschmeyer said the water temperature turned “freezing” a few days later, and she had to put in a maintenance request. She lived in Wagoner in the previous academic year, and she said she experienced issues with hot water then as well. 

Jibben said the maintenance team has been working with the company who installed the hot water systems in Wagoner to fix the bad mixing valve on the main system. 

“[Maintenance] had been doing a lot of advocacy on the part of our students to get that team in and understand why this was an important task to get done for our students,” Jibben said. 

On Jan. 30, Jibben informed residents in an email that the hot water would be shut off on Feb. 1 from 9 a.m. to noon for the company to make repairs. 

“I did shower that night with cold water and no water pressure at all, but they did say it would maybe take a little bit longer than just that day to get fully back on,” Fischer said. “[And] the next day it was.”

Jibben said students began to report that the hot water was not working correctly around 8-9 p.m. on Feb. 1. She said the on-call technician was informed of the issue and arranged for the company to return early the next day. 

Tuschen said the water system is under warranty with its contractor, so the outside company has to repair it. Furthermore, he said the pipe’s manufacturer requires a step-by-step process of attempting a number of smaller repairs before replacing the entire mixing valve. 

According to Tuschen, a new mixing valve will be installed over spring break while students are out of the dorm, if the part arrives in time.