Some students experienced air conditioning outages in dorm rooms during the second week back from summer break.

Caleb Johnston, a freshman applied engineering major, and his roommate, Blake Smith, a sophomore in professional pilot training, experienced the outage firsthand in their suite at Centennial Court C. 

“At one point, our room was up at 90,” Smith said.

They said the room started feeling warm around their second week in the dorm and then their A/C completely failed. They submitted a work request, but maintenance wasn’t able to fix the problem until after almost a week.

“One day is like whatever, two days we’re like ‘oh, it’s hot,’ and after that — like the first week, we’re like dude, we need to get this turned back on,” Johnston said.  

Johnston initially tried to see why the unit wasn’t producing cold air but panicked after it started leaking. 

“It started leaking liquid from the vent part … there was like this little puddle under the vent. It wasn’t huge but our carpet was damp,” Johnston explained.  

University housing had become aware of the issue through multiple maintenance requests and sent out a mass email Aug. 28, where the organization apologized for the trouble.

“We do apologize for the inconvenience and any discomfort this has created for you,” it addressed to any student experiencing problems.

Their air conditioning unit went out at an unfortunate time; according to the National Weather Service, the week of Aug. 25 reported temperatures in the low 90s and mid-80s. Daytime also produced high humidity levels, with most mornings around 70% and backing down to 50% by mid-afternoon.   

But it wasn’t just during the day that the roommates suffered from the heat. Their nights were also plagued with high temperatures. 

“One night we had just slept in the bridge, cause we were like, it’s way too warm in our dorm,” Johnston recalled. “I’d wake up and my skin would like, peel from the sheets cause I’d wake up soaked in sweat.”

In another attempt to combat the lack of A/C, Smith explained their suite had a connected bathroom.

“We turned on the shower to like the coldest setting and placed a box fan to suck in the cold air and blow it into our room.” 

University Housing sent out a later email Aug. 30, expressing the importance of reporting any air conditioning problems students may still be encountering.

“We need all students and staff to enter a work order if they are having issues so that UFM will know what locations are still experiencing an issue,” it read. The outage didn’t strike a specific dorm; the units were reported to be randomly shutting down across campus. 

“I know other people in other dorms were having similar issues,” Smith said.

Johnston said they had a friend in Centennial Court D who had a vent-leaking issue.

Maintenance has been responding to the work orders and continues to do so.

Aryn Kauble is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].