Leaking hot water from a broken steam line pipe attached to Lawrence Hall’s heating system caused significant water damage to multiple dorm rooms on floors 13 – 15 in the building over winter break.

The damage was not discovered until students who live in Lawrence Hall moved back into their dorm rooms on Jan. 5 and 6. The hot water leaked down from inside the walls of the affected dorms, causing moderate damage that required some students to temporarily vacate their rooms and stay in Thayer Hall.

Ayden Miller, a first-year broadcast production major, thought everything was fine with his room until maintenance workers knocked on his dorm’s door on Jan. 6. They explained that water was leaking into the dorm below and had to make sure his room wasn’t the source.

Originally, maintenance workers thought that it wasn’t a leak from Miller’s dorm because the water dripping from the room’s heater was not enough to cause such extensive damage. But according to Miller, they returned the next day on Jan. 7 to re-investigate.

Instead of just doing a slight visual inspection, Miller said that the maintenance workers created a hole close to the floor and to the left of the room’s window, which is near where their heater is, to investigate further. With their findings, Miller said that he and his roommate were told that the source of the water leak was higher up the wall due to the bubbling paint.

After the maintenance workers made another hole higher up the wall, Miller said the source of the problem became clear. He said they could see pipes that led to his room’s heating unit that was ultimately the cause of the water damage.

“You could even see warm water spraying the inner walls and dripping down,” Miller said. “There was even steam and mist coming from the hole they created.”

Chris Hill, vice president of operations, said that a room on floor 14 was directly affected by a fan coil fitting failure, which caused water to leak as well as causing the heater to not work. Hill said the other rooms on floors 13 – 15 were affected by a steam line that split open.

“We are currently in the process of repairing the damage in the aforementioned rooms,” Hill said. “We are working diligently to resolve it as quickly as possible.”

Lawrence Hall is no stranger to water damage problems, such as damage to the ceiling in the Point Café due to a leaking pipe attached to a dishwasher in the Dining Hall. Miller said that he was told a similar issue with the heating system happened before, but was not told how recently or how long ago this problem last occurred.

As for Miller and a few other students affected by the problem, they have been offered a temporary room change to stay in Thayer Hall until their rooms no longer have holes in them and are safe to live in again. Miller currently stays in Thayer Hall.

“Maintenance told us there was a chance of that happening,” Miller said. “We shouldn’t sleep in a room risking our items getting wet and dirty and dealing with maintenance all day.”

According to Miller, both maintenance and residence life apologized profusely for the situation and did not blame him or his roommate for the water damage caused by the broken fan coil unit. 

Instead, the problem was blamed on the fact that Lawrence Hall is an old building.

Lawrence Hall, which was originally the Keystone Athletic Club and then the Sherwyn Hotel, was built in 1927 and was renamed to Lawrence Hall after former Pittsburgh Mayor David L Lawrence. Point Park – which was still a college and not a university at the time – bought the building in 1967.

Miller said that the school told him that the fixes to his room will likely take two to three weeks and then he will be able to move back into Lawrence Hall.

According to Trane, a company that specializes in HVAC systems, fan coil unit-based units are typically found in commercial and office buildings. 

Residence Life did not return a request for comment.