The University of Idaho Argonaut

Photo Illustration by Jake Barber/Argonaut

Although there is no air conditioning in the dorms, this raised some concern.
“We will turn on the heat as soon as we see three to four days of cold and a weather forecast reflecting the same,” said Director of University Housing Ray Gasser. “We also will judge based on student concerns. For example, we turned on the heat Sunday based on concerns being raised and low temperatures.”
Anthony Kango, a freshman living in Theophilus Tower said he was not pleased with the late turn on.
“It had to be ridiculously cold for awhile before they turned the heat on,” Kanago said.

“They need to react faster to temperature changes.”
Regulating the temperature isn’t as simple as flipping a thermostat. The heat cannot just be turned on and off due to weather changes, Gasser said.
“It can take up to one week to regulate the temperature into the rooms,” Gasser said.

Resident Assistant Torrey Ikeda in Wallace and Resident Hall Association Representative Mark Leija said the bottom line is heating in the residence halls is more of an inconvenience rather than a hassle because they don’t have to worry about it themselves.
If there are complaints or comments about heating or temperature in the residence halls, Torrey and Leija said they can be sent in and changed.
The heating in the dorms is universal, but the students have little control over their room temperature.

“Only in the LLC (Living and Learning Center) can a student control the temperature,” Gasser said. “In those rooms they can only control within 7 degrees of the temperature coming into the room.”
The steam plant is a main campus heating system.
“When the heat needs to be turned on, the steam plant is called to turn the steam over to heated steam,” Gasser said.
This steam runs the heat in all the residence halls.

In actuality, university housing has little control over the heat in each building, because the heat in other buildings is based on the heat on campus, said Gasser.
Smith wrote a letter to Interim President Steven Daley-Laursen as well.
“His prompt action resolved the situation,” Smith said. “Now there is heat in the Wallace Complex.”
She said she was grateful for the help of all the people involved.

	1. 18-10-2008 06:45
	Brutally Miss Quoted. I disagree with the way my input to this article was manipulated to make Wallace heating sound worse than it is (as if it is bad to begin with). It was altered to a point that I could hardly believe I had written any of it. Here is what we really said: "heating in the residence halls is more of a convenience rather than a hassle because we don’t have to worry about it ourselves. If anyone has complaints about heating or temperature in the residence halls, we have ways to send in comments and complaints to get things changed." We also feel we have control over temperature to the extent that if it get to hot, we can crack a window open.    Thank you for spending time to read this comment,    Mark Leija Registered

Leija