San Joaquin Delta College announced that its Stockton campus will reopen Tuesday for normal operations after being closed since last Wednesday due to a heating failure, according to an update on the college website.
Crews are completing repairs to an underground heating pipe, and plan to restore heat to the campus in the morning, according to the update.
The advisory urges students, faculty and staff to dress warmly since it will take some time for indoor temperatures to reach comfortable levels once the heat is turned on.
Alex Breitler, the college Director of Marketing and Communications, said classes were moved online or professors gave alternative assignments to students instead of cancelling instruction.
SJDC lost heating to a majority of its Stockton campus buildings Feb. 18 and was expected to remain closed until Sunday. Breitler said the recurring heating issues are likely a result of the campus infrastructure.
The college is heated by a series of underground pipes that push heated water through the buildings, but the pipes are about 30 years old, Breitler said.
“There are leaks that pop up, and we’ve had a few of those over just the last couple months,” Breitler told Stocktonia on Feb. 19. “They haven’t been quite as disruptive as this one because one of them happened during winter break, and the others were patched relatively quickly.”
Breitler said that because of the incoming freezing weather, SJDC officials felt it would be best to close the campus. An update of the campus closure status was posted to the SJDC website Thursday evening, alerting students, faculty and staff that the campus would remain closed through Sunday, and it was extended through Monday.