A year after opening its doors to engineering students, faculty and staff, Howe Hall’s warranty has expired and the new building is showing signs of problems.However, ISU administrators said the problems are normal in new buildings.”Every new building during its first year has a certain number of issues that are unexpected,” said Dean McCormick, engineer for Facilities Planning and Management. “Everything is covered for one year. The warranty allows us to go through a full season to see how the building reacts to things.”McCormick said Howe Hall has been experiencing piping leaks due to this winter’s weather, and personnel from Facilities Planning and Management currently are investigating the problems.”December was a colder-than-normal month,” he said. “When we had the cold weather, that obviously put the heating system through a lot. It was cranked up as high as it would go.”The piping leaks have led to wet carpets and papers, but nothing serious, said David Holger, associate dean of engineering.”As far as I know, they are things that I would categorize as more annoying,” he said. “I’ve seen the results of some of the problems, and to be really honest, they appear to be not as major as some might think.”Construction for Howe Hall began in May 1997, and while the building was officially opened to the public in October 1999, McCormick said it was not completed until January 2000.Howe Hall is home to the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Center for Industrial Research and Service, Engineering Distance Education and the Virtual Reality Applications Center, Holger said.Brent Schrader, junior in civil engineering, said he has not witnessed any of the problems, but he would not be surprised if he saw them.”I think it’s nice but cheaply put together,” he said. “Everything’s new but nothing special.”McCormick said he is not sure when the problems will be fixed, but he said he does not expect it will take an extremely long time.”We always hope that the building will not have problems,” he said. “We’ll walk carefully through this and systematically go through the problems. We’re looking harder and tying up the loose ends.”