The weather is changing in Springfield, and it’s time to think about how this affects our Residence Halls. We have two types of systems in our buildings, two-pipe and four-pipe.
A four-pipe system has supply and return lines for both steam and chilled water. Theoretically, one room could have heat while another has cooling. In the University’s case there are additional considerations. The campus has some standard set-points for the outside temperature that impact what the building systems are able to do. In terms of cooling, if outside temperatures fall below 65 degrees, chilled water pumps will no longer provide chilled water to the system. With heat, temperatures have to be below 60 degrees before steam is provided to the system. Regardless, there should be very few issues with temperatures in four-pipe buildings. Four-pipe buildings include: Freddy, Wells, Woods, Hutchens, Scholars, Hammons basement & first floor, and Kentwood Crystal Room.
A two-pipe system only has one supply and one return line. These systems are not very flexible, because the entire building must be in either heating mode or cooling mode. The process to switch from cooling to heating and vice versa is involved and requires a couple of days. Because of the time and labor involved, once we make the transition for the season, we will not switch back until the next season. Missouri weather is hard to predict and we value student input so Residence Life Facilities, in conjunction with Maintenance, provides a date range for Hall Councils to vote on when they would like to make the transition. The date range is based on the extended forecast and historical transition dates. The range provided to Hall Councils was October 21-November 8. The transition date determined is Thursday, October 24. Two-pipe buildings include: Blair-Shannon, Hammons (2-8), Sunvilla, and Kentwood.