On Jan. 17, the university had an issue regarding a heat exchanger, causing three of Ferris’ resident halls to have no warm running water.
Housing and Residence Life were notified first thing that morning from Facilities Management that there wasn’t any warm water in Ward Hall. The three halls that were affected by this issue were Pickell, Ward and Miller Hall. They weren’t able to find a solution that evening, but they were able identify what the problem was and get the warm water running by the next day.
Housing Facilities Coordinator for Housing Residence Life Greg Eichenberg was able to give the reason behind the situation.
“The issue was a heat exchanger that kept tripping a breaker,” said Eichenberg. “Facilities Management bypassed the heat exchanger that kept tripping the breaker and had water flowing from a different heat exchanger in Knollcrest Commons to make sure that there was warm water in the halls. After using this other heat exchanger Facilities Management found that there were two pumps that had failed, and they replaced those Thursday the 18 in the morning.”
When the new pumps had been fixed, all three halls had warm water and not just lukewarm water anymore according to Eichenberg. He also mentioned that Facilities Management is still waiting to hear back from a vendor to get a replacement actuator for a valve on the heat exchanger so that the warm water can be controlled more feasibly.
This incident has not been the first time the university has had to deal with something like this. During the semester of fall 2023, Travis and Merrill Hall did not have warm running water for approximately two full days. This led to students living in those dormitories having to take cold showers and having colder temperatures coming out of their bathroom sinks.
Digital animation and game design sophomore AJ Simon, a Ward Hall resident, gave his perspective on how he discovered what had happened and how he had to cope with no warm water.
“I heard about it on January 16, when I received an email from my RA,” Simon said. “Not having hot water wasn’t too big of an issue until I needed to shower, which I ended up taking a cold one.”
Besides talking about the situation fixing the pumps, Eichenberg gave his input on it being important for students who didn’t hear about the incident to be aware that it occurred.
“I think it is important that students know about this because it shows that our Facilities Management team was quick to respond to the situation and made sure that all residents had warm water,” said Eichenberg.