Another fire alarm sounded yesterday in Stouffer College House at approximately 3 p.m. The alarm is just one of many that have been plaguing residents of the house for the past weeks.
Though the alarm was triggered by the smoke from a burnt bag of popcorn, previous alarms have sounded as a result of ongoing construction in the basement of Stouffer.
Repeated non-emergency alarms have caused a safety concern and have woken residents multiple times.
According to Facilities and Real Estate Services spokesman Tony Sorrentino, some of the alarms have been the result of small fires caused by unmonitored dormitory room kitchen appliances.
The construction work has caused the remainder of the alarms. The space is being prepared to house administrative offices by December.
As a result of the construction, basement pipes -- and consequently, the sprinkler systems -- were shut down.
"In prepping for the move, we discovered pipes in the basement that needed repair. To repair them required a shutdown of the sprinkler alarms, [and] if the air in the pipes is not fully bled, pipes are air-bound, causing the alarm to be triggered," Sorrentino wrote in an e-mail interview.
Sorrentino noted that Facilities Services is aware of the need to fix the problem and is working to address it.
"We are concerned that if there's a number of false alarms ... that students and staff and faculty would become complacent, which is of course not what anyone would want," Sorrentino said.
"Our goal is to have this fixed and figured out, so when alarms go off, they are for actually emergencies," he added.
Despite administrative attempts to correct the problem, residents of the building remain unhappy.
"They've had this problem, and they've known it's been a problem ever since they turned the heat on ... and they didn't do anything about it, ... which is absolutely ridiculous," said Engineering sophomore and Stouffer resident Jeff Benshetler, who added that some of the alarms fell during the early morning hours on the day of his exams.
"It's pretty inconvenient, especially around midterm time, because getting a lot of sleep is pretty important," Engineering freshman Michelle Rosenthal said.
Oliver Sprinkler Company, the company Penn hires to oversee the system, is currently working on a solution to the problem.
