Water line repairs on campus caused an emergency hot water shut down affecting Mashouf Wellness Center on Nov. 14 and the Vista room on Nov. 17.
University facilities services sent the wellness center an email on Nov. 14 stating that they had to shut down hot water amenities in all nonresidential buildings in order to facilitate repairs on a major active leak on campus, according to Mashouf Wellness Center’s marketing and participant engagement coordinator Marciana Flores. The leaks were located between Burk Hall and Cafe Rosso and the pathway between Student Services and Student Health Center.
“The hot water shut down affected the showers, water used to heat pools and heating in the Mashouf wellness center,” Flores said.
The Vista Room, a restaurant managed by the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at SF State, experienced the shutdown on Nov. 17 and was notified by Facilities that they would try to fix the problem over Thanksgiving break. However, the shutdown was extended through Nov. 30 and The Vista Room ended up having to close on the Monday following Thanksgiving break, but then decided to operate without hot water for the rest of the week until it returned.
“We changed what we did so we could still stay open even though we didn’t have water for our dishwashing so we boiled water to wash our pots,” restaurant management instructor Joseph LaVilla said. “In the dining room, we had to use disposable plates and silverware so we didn’t have to wash and worry about that getting sanitized.”
They also had to remove deep-fried food from the time being because it would have made pots harder to clean with the lack of hot water.
Unlike the Vista room, Mashouf Wellness Center didn’t get their hot water back until the week of Dec. 3. Flores wasn’t sure when the exact date was because they stopped receiving updates on the repairs after the initial announcement from the Facilities department.
“It doesn’t really bother me because I don’t use the showers but I do know that it affects the people who go there to swim,” freshman cinema major Sophia Reinero said about the hot water shutdown in the wellness center.
According to both Flores and Reinero, it’s hard to tell whether the hot water shutdown has really slowed down the flow of students in the wellness center because there may be other factors affecting their routines such as finals week approaching, for instance. Flores admitted that they received complaints regarding the issue but students have generally remained understanding of the situation.
“We have tried to help notify and keep all of our members updated on the situation through social media, email, and signage in the building. We also offered some free coffee, tea and cocoa during this time to help keep people warm,” Flores said.
According to senior director of facilities operations Audun Aaberg, they finished all repairs on Dec. 1 and everything is now back to normal.
