As a winter-time chill begins to grip New England--and Harvard's age-old buildings--University officials say they see no major problems with the College's heating systems. Newly installed control valves in steam-heated dorms are expected by Harvard administrators to end chronically sharp differences in temperatures from room to room.

Because outside temperatures have not yet dropped severely, the steam- and water- heated systems which warm Harvard's Houses, freshmen dorms and buildings are not yet operating to capacity officials say.

But administrators and House superintendents said yesterday they have received few complaints thus far from students about room temperatures, which are set at 68 degrees.

Robert Mortimer, superintendent of the Yard, said yesterday that problems so far this year have not exceeded the average winter difficulties and many House superintendents added that the complaints have been "local" rather than across the heating system.

University officials said that while aiming to maintain temperatures at 68 degrees, they operate individual building's heating systems by "the anticipation of cold temperatures." Until the weather turns consistently cold, this policy sometimes allows unplanned heating deficiencies, they said.

Some instances of cold rooms are unavoidable, J. Lawrence Joyce, director of Buildings and Grounds (B&G), said. High winds penetrating the buildings can cause drafts and "sitting near a wall you can get cold," Joyce added.

Robert E. Lyng, assistant for facilities, and others said that past problems with overheating in many rooms should be alleviated by new valves installed in most steam-heated dorms and houses.

"The new valves will allow us to continue to pump heat into rooms that need it while preventing the over-heating of rooms that don't," Lyng said.

Their Aim is True?

By allowing individual rooms more control of heat than in the past, the new valves should help to avoid wide variances in heating, officials said.

Upperclassmen living in Adams, Claverly, Kirkland, Winthrop and parts of Leverett, North and South Houses, as well as freshmen living in Greenough, Hurlbut, Lionel, Massachusetts, and Thayer and Mower Halls will be able to shut off excess heat this winter by manipulating the valves, which have been adapted to radiators.

Officials had planned to explain the use of the valves with letters to students this fall, but the College has yet to mail the instructions. Proctors and superintendents have all been informed on how to operate the controls, Joyce said.

"They worked other places, and I think they'll work here," J. Lawrence Joyce, director of B&G, said yesterday of the valves, adding, "I think they'll do the job and people will be more comfortable."

Joyce said the valves will not cause additional heatflow. "That valve only does one thing--it limits the excess heat and does not provide heat," he said.