A message from the Office of Physical Plant was relayed in weekly Cluster Memos to students last week noting an uptick in clogged plumbing. In an email from Austin Washington, Dean of Flagstaff, on Monday, October 23, the OPP reiterated proper disposal protocols and included a list of items that students should not flush down drains.
According to Larry Muench, Director of Facilities, OPP has been responding to accounts of clogged toilet drains in faculty residences and dormitories and elaborated on the process of resolving the issue. Along with inappropriate materials being flushed down toilets or poured down drains, Muench also attributed part of the problem to the design of the toilets.
“We first send an OPP Plumber to rectify, but most of the time the clog is so severe that we need to hire an outside company to clear the drain. It’s costly, time-consuming, and can also damage the drain system…[In addition], we install low-flow devices which are now required by the Building Code and this contributes to the problem. The lower flow toilets don’t use the amount of water the old fixture did and items tend to hang in the piping system,” wrote Muench in an email to The Phillipian.
Murewa Biyi-Olaoye ‘27 detailed a myriad of troubles her dorm, Johnson House, has had with clogged drains since the beginning of the year. Biyi-Olaoye commented on how it was oftentimes to identify the exact cause of the clogs.
“Our sink in the basement once got clogged because a bunch of food got in there, and for some reason, we don’t know what happened, but one of our showers started leaking…so we had to get that fixed. We’re not sure what exactly happened…Then, one of our toilets got clogged, so…someone had to use the plunger. We’re not sure what happened there either,” said Biyi-Olaoye.
Jaylen Daley ‘25 commented on how drain clogs also disrupt students’ hygiene routines and daily lives. He noted the challenges students in the Pine Knoll cluster face during the yearly pipe cleanings, and emphasized the disruption a bigger plug could potentially cause.
“If you were to ask someone that lives in [Nathan] Hale or in Fuess, whenever the pipes are being cleared or drained or something’s going on with the system, the water turns brown, the sink gets bad, and some people can’t use the shower, some people aren’t brushing their teeth. It does change the hygiene habits of a lot of kids. I know there were people who last year had to go to Snyder from Pine Knoll in order to take showers and stuff like that, so some people just chose not to, which makes sense. But when there is that involvement, it changes a lot of student life,” said Daley.
A Complement in America House, Joshua Mann also commented how many Andover community members experienced different disposal procedures across the globe prior. He mentioned that discussions to consolidate expectations and roles for these methods could ease the issue.
“I know that depending on where you come from, different countries around the world have different disposal rules and laws and conventions, so maybe we need to recognize that. Typically, the US is more permissive in what to dispose of. Maybe we just need to do a better job of just putting signs up. It wouldn’t have been the thing I thought of having to do, but there’s a problem, and it’s a pretty easy thing just to put some signs up, because then we’d be able to see if that could work,” said Mr. Mann.
María Martinez, a House Counselor in Double Brick, also emphasized the importance of talking about the best ways to take care of the Andover campus. She noted that having conversations can often be effective ways to understand the beliefs and knowledge each student holds, as well as segue into addressing the issue of disposal from the ground up.
“As house counselors, we assume that…everybody knows how to get rid of certain things, and that’s not the case all the time. I think we need to start imagining…if students [don’t] know what to do with certain materials. For us, it’s logical because we are adults, but we need to find spaces for conversation with students to find out which are the things that they are not sure how to get rid of…and guide them, in that regard,” said Dr. Martinez.
