Stuart Brill returned to Kansas University this week from his winter break to find KU had done his laundry for him.

He was one of several students affected by pipe bursts over the break. Brill, a Shawnee freshman, lives in the sixth floor of Hashinger Hall, where water covered the ground of his room after a sprinkler pipe burst on Dec. 21.

“I had a box of clothes that had gotten soaked,” Brill said. “They washed them for me.”

In addition to Hashinger, pipes also burst at the Delta Gamma sorority house, 1015 Emery Road, on Dec. 22, and at the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity house, at 1100 Ind., on Dec. 23. Most students reported little lasting damage from the events.

Todd Cohen, a university spokesman, said that no significant damage occurred in the Hashinger pipe break. The university handled the cleanup in-house with some overtime by the custodial and maintenance staff and extra effort from other staff members, he said.

He said that aside from some clothes and other items, the university had no major reports of property damage. The water only covered the floor and was discovered relatively quickly, making it easier for repair work to be done.

April Garlington, house corporation president for Delta Gamma, said the sorority house’s pipe burst in a third-floor bathroom and caused several thousand dollars worth of damage.

She said though the break was discovered on Dec. 22, it could have started the day before as the house was closed during the time the break occurred. Water had run down the walls of the house, causing damage all the way down to the basement, she said.

Nearly all the damage had been repaired by the time the sorority members returned, she said.

Alex Saunders, Phi Kappa Tau president, said a sprinkler pipe burst over the house’s third floor bathroom.

While the house was without a sprinkler system, code restrictions forced the few residents still in the house out until the system could be repaired, Saunders said.

“We had to shut down for about two days,” he said, saying there was some physical damage to the bathroom area, but little personal property damage occurred, as most of the residents’ rooms are in another part of the house.

Saunders, who was staying in the house at the time of the break, said the damage initially looked worse than it actually turned out to be.

“There was actually water running out of our chandelier and water running down the stairs,” he said. “A friend of mine said it looked like the movie ‘Jumanji.'”

The ceiling on the second floor had to be replaced, Saunders said.

“Aside from a little musty smell in there, you really can’t tell anything happened,” he said.