UCLA’s residence halls will soon have one centralized laundry room in each building rather than smaller laundry rooms on each floor.
UCLA Housing and Hospitality Services and Residential Life decided to change the current laundry room set up after UCLA experienced problems with the ventilation system causing false fire alarms, said Barbara Wilson, associate director of room operations for UCLA Housing and Hospitality Services. The project will cost about $680,000, she said.
With dozens of tiny laundry rooms, steam can build up, overwhelming each building’s ventilation system on the Hill, she said. She added that the fire marshal asked housing officials about a year and a half ago to find a way to stop the false alarms.
“The old infrastructure cannot handle the modern washers and dryers and the additional software service amenities that can be used with them,” Wilson said.
Since the meeting more than a year ago, Housing and Hospitality Services and Residential Life have worked out the logistics of the change, looking at ways to install new machines with the smallest possible interference with student life.
Housing officials plan to open one collective laundry room on the first floor of Hedrick Hall in mid-December, the first of several on the Hill. Sproul Hall is set to undergo the same update in summer 2015, and Rieber Hall will follow the summer after. These traditional residence halls, including Hedrick Hall and Sproul Hall, currently have two small laundry rooms on each floor.
Once the laundry machines are removed, the small rooms will be converted into floor study rooms, Wilson said.
Sunset Village and Dykstra Hall already have centralized laundry rooms and experience fewer false alarms caused by ventilation issues, Wilson said. Housing officials looked at how they could accommodate collective laundry rooms in the high-rises based on feedback from Sunset Village and Dykstra Hall, and the department made an agreement with the fire marshal to make residential halls have centralized laundry rooms, Wilson said.
“This is not a new model for us. We’ve been going toward this model since Sunset Village was built,” she added.
In Hedrick Hall, the common laundry room will essentially replace the TV lounge, which housing officials said is rarely used.
Three study rooms have also been reconfigured to create space for the new laundry room, which will hold 19 sets of machines equipped with BruinCard readers and Laundry Alert, which sends residents a text message when their laundry cycle is complete.
Many students said they are upset about the change.
“(Having) to go all the way down to the bottom floor to do our laundry is kind of irritating, especially because right now there are two sets of washers and dryers on each side of the floor,” said Erika Monasch, a first-year human biology and society student. “It’s going to be really crowded and hard to do laundry.”
Carmela Delda, a second-year psychobiology student who lives in Dykstra Hall, said she dislikes the collective laundry room system already in place.
“I’m not a fan (of the collective laundry room) because it’s highly inconvenient for me to come all the way down from the 10th floor,” she said.
Some students, however, said they are supportive of the switch.
Raynard Parajas, a second-year microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics student who also lives in Dykstra Hall, said he prefers the new system.
“It’s easier because everything is close here,” he said. “The study lounge is right next door, so I can wait there for my laundry to finish while studying.”
He added that he thinks a larger laundry room could also serve as a good way to meet people.
Hedrick Hall’s new laundry room is tentatively scheduled to be installed Friday, and will be ready for students after a couple of weeks of working out possible problems. Until then, students will still be able to access their floor’s laundry rooms.