UW students move back in after boiler breakdown forced 1,400 out

After a week of couch surfing or staying at a hotel, around 1,400 University of Waterloo (UW) students can now move back into their residence at UW Place (UWP) after the university installed temporary boilers.

UW installed four temporary boilers over the weekend, which will stay there until permanent fixes to university-owned boilers are completed.

“We expect those to be in place for the rest of the winter to support us through the permanent fixes we need to make to the boilers,” said Nick Manning, associate vice president of communications at UW.

“It’s unusual for us to have to deal with such a major change but we’re really grateful to our students who have been great at dealing with unexpected change.”

Manning added that students should be back in their dorms by the end of the day, carrying on with their studies. The Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) is working with UW to ensure students aren’t impacted again by a broken boiler.

“It’s inconvenient, it’s something that shouldn’t happen but I’m happy with the way folks responded to it,” said Vice President of WUSA, Arya Razmjoo.

It’s the first time Razmjoo has heard of that many students being impacted at UW by a broken boiler and they do plan to investigate to find out why it malfunctioned in the first place.

“Some folks were put in hotels, others were put up in St. Jacobs, so the commute is now higher and that effect happens on students but honestly credit to the university their response was good, they made sure everybody was accommodated, they worked with the students.”

About 800 of the 1,400 were put up in local hotels, partnering with the university to help impacted students. The rest stayed at family or friends, or couch surfed.

“The region was very good, we had GRT buses on the spot immediately, so it was very helpful to have the city and the region be partners with us and give us the resources we need to help those folks out,” added Razmjoo.

UW Place is composed of two large towers that were affected by the broken boiler, impacting 1,400 students.

The City of Waterloo bylaw ensures all rental accommodations, including student rentals, must be set at a minimum temperature of 21 degrees Celsius.