Do we get what we pay for?

Accidents happen, but after the first year or two of adjustments they shouldn’t keep happening more frequently in newest buildings on campus.

Fabiano residents had to leave their rooms Tuesday night when a steam leak set off those annoying bleeps and flashing lights – they were back in their rooms in less than two hours, a commendable emergency performance.

But the situation deserves a closer look. This is not the first time major problems have happened at Celani and Fabiano halls. Repairs are needed for the sanitary sewer pipes going to the Fresh Food Restaurant, there are missing drain holes underneath air intake pits and a lack of elevator cooling devices has on occasion shut down the elevators.

The Board of Trustees has dedicated $400,000 to patch up the residence halls that have been built for just a year and a half.

In a January CM Life article: “Mistakes in the buildings were made during oversights of design by the architect,” Trustee Gail Torreano (during a December meeting) said, “Architectural and engineering errors in the construction of Fabiano and Celani halls will require extensive maintenance work.”

Architects strike again!

CMU should really invest in a top-notch architecture program because out-of-house firms keep goofing and costing you money.

Two weeks ago it was letting the university community know how much Bovee University Center improvements would cost in the future. Eight years ago, and to this date, it was problems with the Music Building – there’s probably a reason no one wants their name attached to that scaffolding-covered eyesore. The new Towers saw significant and costly delays in construction and recurring elevator entrapments, although the trapped were found laughing – not exactly a pipe bursting.

So three of the five most recent, major on-campus constructions – the Music Building, the new residential halls, the new Towers, the Health Professions Building and the satellite energy facility – have had major problems with the planning.

This has become a pattern, an expensive one.

While the Celani and Fabiano project manager has worked with CMU to fix the problems, and it’s hard to imagine a project this major going off without a hitch, the fact remains that more problems have happened in the newer parts of CMU than in the older parts.

We need to be fair and say that most of those recent constructions have come in on time and at least near the projected budget and that deserves praise. But perhaps a little bit of a delay would result in buildings that could stand as long as Grawn Hall, which was built 93 years ago.

But when new constructions prove to be unreliable, it forces costly withdrawals from the campus improvement fund, leaving less money to address obsolete older buildings such as Sloan or Larzelere. Or Grawn. Those older buildings are not getting cheaper to fix, left alone for too long it will prove prohibitive to repair them.

New constructions need to have steel-solid warranties because CMU cannot afford to keep patching up the brand new buildings while half-century ones stand strong, solid and waiting.

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