Dorm temperatures at UNA cause discomfort for students

Many students who reside in the UNA dormitories complain about the seemingly conflicting temperatures in the halls.

The climates in the dorms are controlled by the Alabama Physical Facilities and run by a system that extends not only to the dorm rooms, but to the educational facilities as well.

Unknown to some students, the matter of controlling and monitoring the temperature system is more complex than what is taken for. Audrey Mitchell, director of housing, said that the system is the same one used in the 1960s.

“I wish we had a different system, but we have what we have,” Mitchell said.

Housing Coordinator Jimmy Waddell explained that they use a chiller system for the entire building and use dampers that regulate the flow of air that goes to different floors and different rooms. This makes it difficult to please every single person in a building who may prefer one temperature to another.

One difficulty in regulating temperatures that Waddell suggests is the conflicting weather at the end of a season. Waddell uses a metaphor of a hot day in the winter season to explain.

“We have the boiler on which is our heating system; we can’t shut that down for one day because there are too many steps to go over to set on the A/C,” Wadddel said. “When you shut the boiler down you cannot restart it.”

Mitchell also pointed out that more complaints are heard twice a year during the change of seasons, when weather is hard to determine on certain days.

One of the factors that causes discomfort for students comes from the transition from their homes to the dorms. Unlike home life with family, it is impossible for the students in the dorm to regulate their room temperatures. The most efficient way to maintain the temperature, as Mitchell and others suggest, is to dress according to the conditions inside the dorms.

Some students seem to adapt to different conditions as they have different personal preferences than others.

“I’m a warm kind of guy, so I like things to be warm,” said David Augustus, a resident of LaGrange Hall. “If things are cold in the dorm, you can’t bring a heater, but if the dorms are too warm you can bring in a fan.”

Nonetheless, most students do not appear to feel satisfied with the dorm room conditions.

“It’s never just right,” said Skylar Stewart, a LaGrange resident. “It’s either too hot or it’s too cold.”

As difficult as the situations may appear for students as they live in the dorms, the housing and residence life departments assure students that they are open to hearing from the students in order to help improve their living conditions.

“Any time we hear about students complaining about anything, we want to hear those concerns,” Mitchell said. “I want to know what is going on, which is why we give [the students] the avenues on how to communicate with us.”

“There are going to be periods of time where there’s going to be a little discomfort, but we try to make it as comfortable as possible for everyone living there,” Waddell said.

“We know it’s hot when we hear students complain and we know it because we can feel it as well,” said Kevin Jacques, director of residence life.