Main campus cooling outage planned

There is a suspected leak in a water line on university property near 16th Avenue and Shaganappi Trail N.W.

This water line supplies water from the Bow River to the Central Heating and Cooling Plant and is responsible for the cooling of most buildings on main campus. It also cools specialized equipment such as low-temperature freezers, walk-in coolers, IT data centres, and other laboratory and research and teaching equipment.

Planned work to investigate this suspected leak is targeted to take place on Friday, June 9, 2023. To allow for this, the affected water pipe will be temporarily shut off for that day. Work could continue into the weekend only if necessary. We have selected this date as Fridays are typically a quieter day on campus and this date is after the conclusion of convocation ceremonies.

While the chilled water line is being worked on, most of our buildings on main campus will no longer receive cooling. Buildings will remain open. Water will continue to be available in bathrooms, kitchens, lab sinks and drinking fountains.

What should I do?

Further communications will be sent to researchers, teaching instructors and managers on how to support their teams at this time. Students will receive updates from their teaching instructors if there is any impact to their studies.

Special steps are being taken to address areas of the campus that have specialized or unique cooling requirements, such as our data centres, certain research facilities and specialized research support spaces.

As this situation evolves, we will post further updates on the cooling outage on our website. We will also continue to communicate updates to keep the campus community informed.

Mike Van Hee
Vice-President (Services)
University of Calgary