On Sunday, Nov. 12, Justice Bean Residence Hall experienced a malfunction in the control panel used for the operation of hot water in the building, causing a shutdown of all hot water for a total of 18 hours. 

Residents of Justice Bean were notified of the issue through an email at 3:30 p.m., explaining that the shut-off would last from the time students received the email through 4 p.m. the following day on Nov. 13 due to “an emergency maintenance issue.” 

The repair of the malfunction occurred earlier than expected, and a follow-up email was sent to residents at 9:45 a.m. on Nov. 13 notifying them that hot water access in bathrooms and kitchens had resumed. 

According to the initial email, “residents seeking hot water for purposes such as bathing [could] do so at the Student Rec Center during normal operating hours.” However, many residents took cold showers, waited or walked to friends’ dorms. 

Justice Bean resident Cody Yockman’s initial reaction to the shut-off was that “it wasn’t great, but I didn’t think of it too much,” he said. He opted to take a cold shower during the shutoff, but said “I’m one of the few people I suppose around here that has done that.”

Another resident, Nicklaus Miller, chose to walk to another dorm to shower instead, and he knew of several people who decided to walk to either Global Scholars Hall or LLC for hot water. 
Miller found the shut-off to be a significant inconvenience. “Having to walk over to someone else’s dorm to shower was not fun,” he said. “The amount of time it takes to shower was doubled to tripled depending on how far you had to go.”

Both Yockman and Miller noticed the lack of hot water in the building on Sunday prior to the 3:30 p.m. email announcement: Yockman midday, and Miller in the morning. 

Miller heard about the issue first by word of mouth because people he knew in his dorm were struggling to get it to turn on. “They were running the water for a few minutes waiting for it to turn warm and it never did, so they just gave up,” he said. 

Yockman was relieved that the malfunction was repaired faster than expected, but felt that the email announcement from UO was sent out to students too late. “They did complete it fairly quickly, so it’s not super bad, but the water was cold before they ever emailed about it,” he said. “That was something I was a little annoyed about, they should’ve said something when the problem arose.”

Currently, this malfunction has not been reported at other resident halls.