Scott BresslerA water main in Village House was discovered to be leaking Wednesday, prompting quick repairs that required maintenance to cut off water access temporarily to several buildings on the North Side.
According to Bill Wiley, manager of maintenance operations, at approximately 3:50 p.m. on Wednesday a mechanic working in the lower level of Village House noticed a water leak in a storage room coming from the six-inch water main that enters the structure. The leak was due to the failure of the solder joint on the elbow of the main.
Maintenance workers with the facilities department at Washington University proceeded to repair the leak, but to do that they had to shut off the water main, effectively cutting off domestic water from Lopata House and the Village’s four fraternity houses-Beta Theta Pi, Tau Kappa Epsilon, Sigma Phi Epsilon and Alpha Epsilon Pi.
Wiley said that the water main was shut off at 5:30 p.m. and repairs were completed and the main was back in operation by 11:30 p.m. Water flow returned to the affected areas by midnight.
According to Josh Walehwa, associate director of Residential Life, the water leak warranted quick attention.
“This was one of those situations where, if [facilities] waited it probably would have gotten worse, so they couldn’t wait for this one, and they had to deal with it immediately,” said Walehwa.
Although the Village Hose was the source of the leak, the building itself was not affected by the leak or the shutoff of the main, as it is supplied by a separate pipe.
Additionally, only domestic water systems in the five buildings were affected; sprinkler systems in the surrounding area were not affected because the pipe supplying them splits off the affected water main before the location of the leak.
According to Wiley, outage notices were posted on all the doors in the affected buildings and RCDs sent out e-mails to residence hall members to alert them of the water outage.
Village House and Loop Lofts RCD Daniel Sepion could not be reached for comment.