Guidelines for Building Administrators and Occupants
Planned electrical shutdowns are always prescheduled with input from the campus community for times that will least affect campus activities and operations. Generally this means weekends, off hours and during holidays.
Things to remember during planned electrical shutdowns:
- No students or employees (except for operational staff working on the electrical shutdown or emergency services personnel) are allowed in buildings during this period of time. Any special request for an exception must be made through University Police. Employees scheduled to work in a building during a planned shutdown will receive an alternative assignment.
- Elevators are not in service during a shutdown and should not be used immediately prior to the start of the planned shutdown.
- During planned shutdowns, emergency generators will provide power for fire alarms, emergency lighting and equipment tied to red outlets (used in most buildings to denote outlets connected to emergency power). Check with your Building Administrator if you have questions about what equipment is tied to emergency power.
To prepare for electrical shutdowns, building occupants are asked to consider the following:
- Laboratories with fume hoods must plan to remove experiments from the fume hoods. All chemicals in fume hoods must be capped and sealed. No reactions are to be done in the fume hoods during this time.
- Secure any chemicals, equipment, or processes in laboratories that require exhaust systems.
- Shut down uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) during extended outages.
- Make sure your computers are turned off since they could potentially be damaged when power returns.
- Turn off any other unnecessary office equipment (i.e., copiers)
- Refrigerators, freezers and vending machines containing ice cream or other perishables should be temporarily emptied.
