General Facilities Information

Chemistry Block hours of operation

The Chemistry block has standardized hours of operation.

Exterior doors to all buildings will be unlocked at 7:30 am and locked at 5:00 pm Monday to Friday.

Buildings are locked all day on weekends and statutory holidays.

Authorized staff, faculty and researchers may request after-hours building access following this process:

How do I get access?

Your supervisor or the appropriate manager must send an email to the Chemistry Facilities Office authorizing you to have
access and/or specifying which keys you should have.

What information should the request contain?

• The full name of the person to be granted access
• Their student/staff/faculty ID#
• A valid email address
• For students and visitors: The start and end dates of their access
• A list of rooms that the person needs access to
• An indication of whether after-hours building access is required
• If card access is required, the number after the * on the back of the recipient’s ID card

Who authorizes what?

• General building access – Supervising faculty members or managers
• Shared Instrument Facility (SIF) – Benjamin Herring
• Mass Spectrometry – Dr. Yun Ling
• NMR – Dr. Paul Xia
• Biological Services – Dr. Elena Polishchuk

Special event access

For special event room bookings on weekends or holidays, please notify the Chemistry Facilities Office so that we can
coordinate with Campus Security and Access Control to unlock doors or arrange for custodial cleaning after the event.

For security reasons, no exterior door in the Chemistry block should ever be propped open to provide access to the
buildings.

If your safety is in immediate danger or if you are witness to a crime-in-progress, call 911 immediately.

Suspicious activity should be reported to UBC Campus Security at (604) 822-2222.

Please see the UBC Campus Security website for more information and tips on staying safe on campus.

Campus Security will notify the Chemistry Facilities Office of all security-related incidents that occur in the Chemistry
block in order to facilitate post-incident repairs and insurance claims as needed.

It is strongly encouraged that all security incidents that occur in the department are reported to Campus Security.

The following rooms are available for booking in the Chemistry block

• A233
• B355
• D211
• D213
• D215
• D219
• D229
• D317
• E311

Please contact the department receptionist (recept@chem.ubc.ca) to enquire about room availability.

Internal users may book certain rooms here.

Priority will be given to Chemistry classes and department-related activities. Bookings by external users may be considered
on a case-by-case basis.

These rooms are for classroom/meeting room activities only. There are no bookable labs in the Chemistry block.

Lecture halls in Chemistry block must be booked via Scheduling Services.

Flyers and advertisement may be posted in the Chemistry block on department poster boards ONLY. Flyers posted on other surfaces will be removed as they cause damage to the walls.

Posters must provide their own push-pins or staples. Do not use tape, glue, wheat paste or other adhesives.

All poster boards are cleared at the end of every term.

Please contact the department receptionist (recept@chem.ubc.ca) to enquire about portable poster board availability.

To ensure the safety and privacy of people in the buildings, all filming and photography inside the Chemistry block requires
the permission of Department Administration. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Wedding photography
• Graduation/Convocation photography
• Filming and photography for use in academic courses offered by UBC or other academic institutions
• Filming and photography for television, film, streaming, social media, and advertising

Please initiate filming and photography requests by email to hrfacilities@chem.ubc.ca. Requests will be referred to the UBC Film Office.

Filming and photography on the exterior of the Chemistry block, including on Main Mall, may also require permission from the
UBC Film Office.

Requests for maintenance can be made by sending an email to hrfacilities@chem.ubc.ca. Please include the following information:

• The room number where the maintenance is required
• A description of the repair that is needed (example: Light fixture not working, plugged sink, broken window, etc.)
• Note any safety hazards in the work area that repair staff should be aware of (lasers, high magnetic fields, chemical
  fumes or vapours, etc.)

Special Instructions for Fume Hood Maintenance and Repair

To request fume hood maintenance, please follow this procedure:

1. Stop using the fume hood
2. Ensure any chemicals in the fume hood are capped, covered or otherwise in a safe, non-reactive state
3. Close the fume hood sash
4. Complete a Lab Clearance Form (template available here)
5. Send an email to hrfacilities@chem.ubc.ca with the following information:
   • The fume hood number (available on the fume hood sash-height tag)
   • Contact information for the person responsible for the contents of the fume hood (fume hood user, lab safety
     representative and/or lab PI)
   • A description of the problem (e.g. no air flow, broken sash, leak from fume hood faucet, etc.)
   • Attach a copy of the completed lab clearance form to the email
6. Further instructions on how to prepare the fume hood for maintenance will be provided once the appropriate Building Operations maintenance staff have had an opportunity to evaluate the fume hood. Templates for fume hood shutdowns can be found in the documents section.

Special repairs

The following are examples of special repairs.

• Carpet cleaning and replacement
• Repair of damaged flooring (tile or linoleum)
• Painting of walls (including patching wall damage from picture hanging)
• Repair or replacement of built-in features (lab benches, etc.)

Requests for special repairs can be initiated through hrfacilities@chem.ubc.ca.

After-hours emergency repairs

For emergency repairs during hours when the Chemistry Facilities Office is closed, please call the Building Operations
Service Centre directly at (604) 822-2173.

If you are not sure if a repair is an emergency or not, call the Service Centre. If the repair is not an emergency it will
be delegated to the day shift.

Appropriate night-shift trades workers will be dispatched to stabilize conditions. Full repairs will be completed during
normal operating hours for the Building Operations day shift.

Please notify the Chemistry Facilities Office that an emergency repair was initiated so that staff can follow-up with
Building Operations.

Please note the following rules about disposing of large and special items. These rules are in place to ensure the prompt
disposal of materials and ensure that we do not have fire code violations.

These rules apply to materials from labs, workshops and offices in the Chemistry block only. Personal items and items from
other buildings on campus should not be brought to the department for disposal.

The Building Operations Moving Crew are only permitted to move disposal items that have been appropriately tagged for
disposal as this ensures that required decommissioning/decontamination processes have been done. They will only move items
associated with a department service request.

Everything that requires disposal must be reported to the Chemistry Facilities Office in order to receive a disposal tag and
be included in a service request.

Furniture

Furniture for disposal may be stored in hallways on a temporary basis ONLY if adequate room is available in the hallway for
safe building evacuation. Use one side of the hallway only. Do not block doorways.

Any furniture that has been used in a lab or workshop should be wiped down and decontaminated before disposal. All drawers,
cabinets, etc. must be empty.

The Facilities Office posts furniture in a reusable condition on UBC's Rheaply page. Please contact the Facilities Office if you are interested in furniture posted on this page.

Large appliances (Refrigerators, freezers, drying ovens, etc.)

Any large appliances that were used in a lab must be decontaminated before disposal. Please contact the Chemistry Safety
Office if you need guidance on how to decontaminate these items.

E-waste

E-waste can be placed in the bins near the Liquid Nitrogen dispensing room and do not need to be individually tagged. These
bins are for collection of non-functional electronic and electrical devices ONLY.

Do NOT put any of these items in these bins:

• Cardboard, wood, or scrap metal
• Glass (including optics, light bulbs, or laboratory glassware)
• Garbage
• Batteries (battery recycling is available in the Chemistry Main Office D223)
• Chemicals or other hazardous waste (including mercury switches)
• Large appliances (refrigerators, etc.)
• Lab equipment that has not been fully decontaminated

Do not overfill the bins. If they are full, please store your e-waste until they are emptied out again.

Wood waste (crates and pallets)

Crates must be disassembled before being neatly stacked in the wood waste pickup area. Disposal tags are not required. Do
not block roads or sidewalks with wood waste.

Books and stationery (binders, etc.)

Books and binders in good and usable condition can be placed on the "Free items shelf" in the 3rd floor hallway
of B-wing. Please keep the shelf tidy.

Custodial Services at UBC are administered through Building Operations, however, the following should be reported to the
Chemistry Facilities Office for action as maintenance items:

• Overflowing hallway waste sorting stations
• Washrooms in need of hand soap, paper towels or toilet paper
• Break rooms in need of hand soap or paper towels
• Exterior doors that are still locked during the building public access hours

Waste collection from labs

Custodians are responsible for removing non-contaminated lab waste from labs only. The removal of hazardous lab waste and
all waste from lab office areas is the responsibility of lab occupants.

Waste collection from offices

Office users must take waste from their offices to hallway sorting stations.

How do I rent a locker in the Chemistry block?

Lockers in the Chemistry block are rented via the Undergraduate Chemistry Society. Please contact them here.

Does the department sell lab coats and safety glasses?

Lab coats and safety glasses appropriate for use in Chemistry labs are sold by the department. Links to the lab supplies
sale will be distributed to students enrolled in Chemistry courses each term via their course Canvas page. Please contact us
for the current sale link as it changes every term.

Samples are available to try on in the Facilities Office D234.

Please note that this PPE may not be appropriate for use in other types of labs (especially biology labs).

Can I do drop-in lab research in your labs?

For reasons of safety and security there is no public access to labs in the Chemistry block. Access to labs is restricted to
authorized personnel only.

Lab Clearance from January 2021

Level 1 Fume Hood Shutdown

Level 2 Fume Hood Shutdown

Level 3 Fume Hood Shutdown