By Timothy Ritterbusch, Staff Writer
In the early hours of Monday, Aug. 25, six rooms of Traber Hall residents lay sweating in their beds — work orders pending for their malfunctioning air conditioners. After finally drifting off to sleep, residents were startled awake by the shriek of fire alarms. Later that afternoon, the alarm went off again. According to facilities staff, a malfunctioning detector, now replaced, triggered the second fire alarm, while the cause of the first remains unclear.
“There’s been a lot more fire alarms in these past couple of days than I expected,” said Aaron Connors, resident assistant of Traber’s second floor.
Traber is the all-male wing of the Smith-Traber Residence Hall for undergraduate students. Along with questions and frustrations surrounding the fire alarm, maintenance problems have complicated the back-to-school buzz.
On Traber’s sixth floor, first-year student Alex Copestick’s air conditioning hasn’t worked since returning from Passage. “ When we first moved in, it was upsetting and made me a little nervous because we were new to campus and it was really hot and hard to sleep at night,” said Copestick.
Jay Bieszke, campus director of facilities, said that the widespread air conditioning issues could stem from an issue with the fan coil design or the building’s heating and cooling loop. The facilities staff was working in conjunction with the fan coil manufacturer and campus engineers. “We are addressing it from multiple angles,” Bieszke said.
Staff have ordered a cooling module to boost cooling and improve the building’s flow.
Many Smith-Traber residents were initially concerned that the fire alarms could lead to microwaves being removed from floors, as they were last year after several incidents of intentional misuse. However, Jess Connors, first-year graduate resident advisor of Smith-Traber, said that this would not be the case as the alarms were unrelated to student behavior.
Facilities staff are working to resolve the issues and are hoping for normal life to resume soon. Until then, Traber residents will continue to adapt to the malfunctions as they settle into the new semester.
