Ben Smidt

Sophomore Angela Gutche and her roommate, sophomore Sarah Henry, are just two of the residents in Sutherland Hall that have had to endure the dorm’s power outages.

“Every time the power goes out the fridge goes out and things thaw,” Henry said. “It sucks when you have milk or fruit and everything spoils.”

Residents of Sutherland Hall have had to deal with the issue of power shortages during the past three weeks.

So far, two unplanned power outages and one planned blackout happened in the residence hall in the month of September.

Sutherland’s Hall Director, Joel Duncan, sent an e-mail to all of his residents Sept. 18 explaining the problems with the electricity in the dorm.

Duncan’s e-mail stated that the power usage in Sutherland is much higher this semester than last semester.

An increase in the use of personal electronics and the population of the dorm are two factors that contribute to the problem.

Duncan said the dorm is the most populous of all the “traditional style” dorms, which means that in addition to all of the personal electronics, use of the dorm’s lighting and laundry systems are heavily taxed.

Sutherland employed some temporary measures to conserve power.

One of the two laundry rooms in the dorm will be closed for the semester, which Duncan said saves more than 120 amps of the 400 amps that the dorm has to utilize.

“Our energy usage peak times are between 7 p.m. and midnight,” the e-mail stated.

Duncan offered suggestions on cutting back on the use of power to prevent other outages.

He said turning off unneeded lights, using towels to dry washed hands, doing laundry during the day and turning off computer monitors when not in use are some ways to conserve power.

Chuck Major, director of Housing and Residence Life, said that housing is putting out a bid to local electrical contractors to increase the amperage above the 400 amps currently available for the dorm to accommodate student’s increasing power needs.

“When you look at it today it seems extremely low,” Major said. “Some houses have 200 amps.”

Major said after the university receives a design from electrical experts and a bid, it will be sent to the state for approval.

If everything works right, the electrical system will be worked on during either Thanksgiving break or winter break, Major said, adding that it probably would be during winter break.

For Henry, the sooner it’s done the better.

“We do pay an awful lot of money to live here,” Henry said. “(Housing) can’t expect us to live here without power and lots of heat.”