The highly anticipated sophomore dorm, Greiner Hall, has been touted as a state-of-the-art and environmentally friendly facility. However, now in its first semester of operation, students are finding that they lack basic necessities – most notably, hot showers.
Frank Fonseca, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, is a typical college student that survives on only a few hours of sleep; he is more focused on the practical effects, rather than the environmental, of having to worry about cold showers.
"I don't want to have to lose another 45 minutes to wake up earlier so that I can turn the shower on and sit there like a jackass waiting for it to warm up," Fonseca said. "Forty-five minutes is valuable when you only get four hours of sleep."
Students in the sophomore-only, suite-style dorms have been living with unpredictable and often non-existent hot water. Since the beginning of the fall semester, students wait an average of 20-30 minutes before water begins to get warm for their showers.
Greiner Hall was designed as a candidate for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold certification – an internationally-recognized certification system that provides building owners and operators with guidelines for identifying and implementing green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.
As an environmentally friendly building, low-flow showerheads and faucets are standard. Students wonder if the lack of immediate hot water has something to do with the "go-green" mentality that surrounds the hall.
"I understand that Greiner was built to cut back on energy and be a green building," said Alexandria Trujillo, a sophomore pre-pharmacy major. "But at the end of the day I'm wasting more water because I have to leave it running for two minutes to reach a lukewarm temperature to wash my face at night."
Campus Living has assured concerned parents and students that it is taking the problem seriously. However, students are continuing to plan their schedules around the possibility of waiting up to a half an hour for a mildly warm shower.
Students pay roughly $600 a month to live in UB Residence Halls. A double room in Greiner costs $6,840 per academic year – $612 more than a double in any other hall. For this price, students and parents both believe that hot water within a reasonable amount of time is essential. For many students, the only way to pay for their housing is either through loans or support from their parents.
"The hot water issue is just incredible annoying," Trujillo said. "The thing that makes me the angriest is the fact that I am paying a ton of money and cannot even have hot water, which is a basic in every dorm building."
Bruce and Melanie Miller, parents of sophomore communication major Gabe Miller, claim that they've heard of their son's problems in Greiner since the beginning of the semester. As the months went on, they heard more and more complaints. They, like many parents, were shocked that the university let the problem go on for so long.
"It seems to me that they had no business having students occupy the dormitory if the problems were not resolved prior to the start of the semester," Bruce said in an email. "I mean, with any new building there may be some minor kinks to work out. We'll give the school the benefit of the doubt. But let's be honest – this is November. If my memory serves me correct, the semester began the first week of September. Cold showers? That's not what I call a ‘minor kink.' That's a serious flaw."
After speaking with Andrea Constantino, the interim director of Campus Living, the Millers were reassured that the university was "taking the problem seriously and addressing it promptly." On Nov. 1, Constantino stated in an email to the Millers that "[the university] has been in contact with the architects and plumbing contractors to correct the issues that are still unresolved in Greiner Hall."
This problem has been going on since "day one," according to Fonseca and the Millers. Hearing the university is speaking with contractors is welcome news for the students living in Greiner Hall.
"I just question how much awareness the school officials had about the problem at the beginning of the semester," Bruce said. "And if they, in fact, were aware of the problem, why did it take until November for the problem to be fixed? The students shouldn't have had to be subjected to cold showers for this long a period of time."
One thing students can agree on is the fact that they spend an excessive amount of time and water waiting for a warmer temperature. While many students understand and appreciate the effort to have an environmentally friendly building, they believe that fixing the temperature would be better in the long run.
"If they spent the money to get it fixed it'd actually probably save money because people wouldn't have to waste water waiting for it to get warm," said Kelsey Clark, a sophomore exercise science major.
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