Since the start of the spring semester, students residing in University Village have experienced unannounced hot water outages.

Shreya Billa, a sophomore biology major and resident of UV Phase 8A, said that she experienced two hot water outages in spring 2023 with no warning. The outages typically lasted a day, with Housing working to quickly establish hot water again.

“Maybe around 30 minutes to an hour after it starts, that’s when I get an email that they’re working on fixing it,” Billa said.

The Mercury was in contact with three other Comets who were similarly affected by UV water outages. The topic has also been discussed through Reddit posts by UTD students.

“I have heard about it affecting people in Phase 1, Phase 2 with the same problem,” Billa said. “Not like complete water going out, but the same hot water problem … in terms of my own Phase, we have a group chat where people complain a bit about it.”

Housing did not respond to a request for comment. Billa said that the outages did not happen last semester and have only been occurring during spring 2023.

“Maybe if [Housing] focus[es] on developing some infrastructure or updating some structure that [is] needed to keep the hot water going, that could help as well, so it’s not a recurring problem,” Billa said.