Vandals strike the church airconditioning

 About two weeks ago our Sacrament meeting was very HOT!  The air was blowing but not cooling.  Even I was hot and that is really saying something.  Word came around, via the bishopric, that the air conditioning was broken.

Turns out, it was vandalized.  The vandals stole the copper tubing.  I did not take a picture of the mess they left, the rough cut pipes and the discarded insulation.  It made me sad.

Notice the long pipes to the units?  The tubes are about 3 inches around.  All of that was cut and removed.  They probably netted a hundred dollars or so.  They cut the padlock on the gate to get access.

 The church deemed the air conditioning needed replacement anyway, so they got three new smaller units (above you only see two.  The other one is tucked behind the larger unit on the left.)  The big units were installed this week.  We will have air on Sunday.  Mother's Day was warm but we only had Sacrament meeting in the morning and by 12:30 a.m the temperatures were only 92 outside.  It was cooler inside.

The picture to the left is how they repaired the brick wall after they had to chip out the old brick to access the copper tubing in the wall.  There are three places - the two you see, and on the far left, past the white grill unit.  I don't know the cost of the new repair, but knowing how much one unit at a house costs, one can imagine it was over $10,000.

This is a picture of the older units at the back of the building that were not vandalized.  As you can see, the rust on the top is gross.  Maybe these two units will be replaced in the future.  They kept the east side of the building cool for the mid-week activities.

My counsel for this post:  Maybe a stronger lock on the gates and a sensor system that will sound an alarm if the area is entered unauthorized, would help protect the units. Such a sad state!