Several residents of A.B. Barret Hall have experienced discomfort in their rooms due to inconsistencies with the temperature of the air conditioning.

Kealey Fabian, sophomore biochemistry major from San Antonio, has noticed many problems with the hall’s air conditioning system.

“When it’s hot outside you walk into the dorm and have to put on a sweatshirt,” Fabian said. “And during the cold months you walk in and it’s like walking into Mordor and it’s really uncomfortable.”

Fabian said this problem has been occurring all school year. However, she said not all days are unpleasant.

“Sometimes it’s not running at all and we’ll open our window,” she said. “It’s glorious.”

Fabian said she has sent several maintenance requests addressing the problem, even emailing as late as 2 a.m. after being woken up by extreme temperatures. She also said it seems to be a general consensus among the residents that the air conditioning system does not work well.

Caroline Gafford, sophomore biochemistry major from Dallas, has noticed other problems with the system.

“This past week it was cold outside in the morning and at night, but in the afternoon it was super hot,” Gafford said. “We’d walk into our room at night but the air would still be cold even though it was 30 degrees outside and then we’d have no way to heat our room.”

“It’s really been kind of frustrating trying to sleep at night because I’m either freezing in the morning or burning up in my covers at night,” said Aaron Vaught, sophomore vocal music education major from Fort Worth. “It’s not a very good situation.”

Dr. John Delony, associate dean of students, said recent unusual temperature patterns could be to blame for the inconsistency. The air conditioning for the entire campus is heated or cooled by one system.

“Recently the (outdoor) temperature has been fluctuating,” Delony said. “It’s pretty expensive to funnel all that hot water and then once you’ve heated this whole campus and it switches because you just have a warm day, you lose all that money to cycle that back out.”

Physical resources is responsible for switching the system from hot to cold, and any maintenance requests are forwarded to that department by the residence director that receives them, Delony said. He assures students this issue is not a low priority.

“If there’s a significant number of maintenance requests, we definitely want to make sure it’s fixed,” he said.