Residents in Mill Point neighborhood have been experiencing colder-than-usual temperatures in their apartments due to certain limits set on thermostats.
Senior Victoria Oakley, who lives in Mill point, said she was dealing with extremely cold temperatures during the month of January. The thermostat installed in her apartment would not go above a set limit. Although the internal temperature read 68 degrees, she said it felt more like 60-65 degrees inside.
“I didn’t start really start noticing it until winter term, when it got really cold,” Oakley said. “It was an everyday discussion.”
The temperature got to a point for her and her roommates where they were constantly complaining about how cold it was, even going as far as leaving the oven open to heat up the room.
“We would stay in here and watch movies at night, and I remember we would all stand up from the couch and putz over to the oven, and just kind of stand near it for a while watching T.V.,” Oakley said.
Oakley also submitted a request to Physical Plant on Jan. 4, but the problem persisted throughout the month despite the order being marked as complete.
This was not an isolated occurrence. Oakley reported there were several other apartments in Mill Point that experienced the same problem. Even after speaking with her apartment manager multiple times about the issue, no fix came.
“The only official answer we got about it being so cold was the email,” Oakley said.
On Jan. 8, Ian Reynolds, assistant director of residence life for facilities and housing operations, sent out an email to Mill Point residents advising them to keep windows closed because “When windows are opened in these temperatures it creates an environment that is not stainable nor appropriate for the weather. In addition, pipes can freeze with windows open even if the heat is on. This will also cause the heaters to overwork and/or break.” This did not appear to be Oakley’s case, because even though she followed the guidelines, the problem continued.
One idea was that the thermostat was reading the temperature wrong, and as a result, the students could not increase it past the limits set. Because of this, the 68-degree limit was more like a 60-65-degree limit.
Though Oakley went to Physical Plant and complained to her apartment manager, she never went to Residence Life because “it wasn’t that much of an annoyance.”
“I was uncomfortable for the month of January,” Oakley said. “But it wasn’t enough of a hindrance where I felt like I needed go and contact the administration multiple times.”
Oakley also had temperature problems last year, living in the Oaks neighborhood.
“We did contact physical plant last year and they came and said that the bedrooms were reading colder than the thermostat in the living room and they did adjust the thermostat for us at that time,” Oakley said.
Though heating apartments was a problem throughout the colder months of the year, recently the problem has subsided due to the rising temperatures outside.