Two construction projects replacing pipes buried under UF's campus are almost complete.
The sites behind the Hub and in front of the Infirmary will be restored in the next few weeks.
Each project cost about $200,000, said Jeff Bair, project manager at the Architecture and Engineering Department of UF's Physical Plant Division.
Both areas underwent construction for steam distribution system problems.
The pipes provide campus with steam for utilities including heating and hot water.
Bair said problems are not unusual for the almost 30-year-old pipes.
Two months ago at the Hub, workers found leaks were blowing 200-degree water out of a pipe that supplies steam power to the building.
They found other pipes in bad condition, he said.
Workers including contractors from Underground Services Inc. and W. W. Gay Mechanical Contractor Inc. had to cut out and replace pipes.
At the Infirmary, workers knew the steam line was leaking but not that it was in a similar state.
"We ended up virtually doubling the level of work," Bair said.
The project began in January and took about two and a half weeks.
Soon, workers will put the pipes in service, which means temporarily stopping hot water in nearby buildings, including some dorms and the Student Recreation Center, Bair said.
"We do our best to make it as least inconvenient as possible," he said.
Ciara Lepanto, an 18-year-old English freshman, said she wasn't impacted by the construction.
"It's just like, ‘Oh, OK, they're blocking stuff off,'" she said. "It hasn't bothered me yet."
