Temperatures in unoccupied buildings over winter break took a dip, as Eastern lowered the temperatures to conserve energy from Dec. 19 to Jan. 5.

Ryan Siegel, campus energy and sustainability coordinator, said unoccupied buildings had temperatures as low as 60 degrees during break.

“Some buildings were exempt if there were programs that would be affected by the setback,” he said.

Scheduled events and research needs would exempt the building.

“Buildings where programs would not be affected are allowed to drift down to 65 at night after buildings close during the semester,” Siegel said.

During the school year, building temperatures were lowered to allow the university to save money.

“The amount of cost avoidance gained from our temperature setback efforts is certainly real, but tough to quantify,” said Gary Reed, director of facilities, planning and management. “The industry rule of thumb says that during times when the heating thermostat is lowered, a cost avoidance of 2 percent for each degree can be realized on the heating bill.”

Lowering the temperatures during break is not an uncommon practice at Eastern.

“As part of campus energy conservation during the heating season, building temperatures are lowered during unoccupied times and especially during holiday breaks when possible,” Reed said. “This has been in practice for many years.”

Energy savings are also pursued during the summer.

“The summer program takes advantage of long weekends and the temperatures are allowed to drift up to 80 degrees in unoccupied buildings,” Siegel said.

During summer months, many university offices close at noon on Fridays, which allows the university to conserve energy for two-and-one-half days a week.

Cooling costs last summer increased about $75,000 after the university turned to steam-based cooling equipment, supplementing existing electric cooling.

Matt Hopf can be reached at 581-7942 or at mthopf@eiu.edu.