Property Update
The Property team has been diligently working over the warm summer months to get several projects done.
The chapel roof was completely re-done and now has no more leaks and no more ponding of water. The very old air conditioning unit was removed and a new and energy efficient heat pump (which will act as an air conditioner) has been installed in both the chapel and the terrace room. The heat pump in the terrace room will now provide cooling in there and partially replace the very loud cabinet heater. We will still need the cabinet heater when the outside air temperatures are below freezing, but it will be a lot less than it has been. Now that the roof is repaired and those new units are working, we can finish repairing the ceiling in the chapel!
We had a yard work day in June and did some weeding and clean up. Jon Morse and Pastor Becky did some gardening around the columbarium. Meanwhile, Jean Hill planted beautiful flowers in the planter boxes around the building. (Look how nicely they match the wreaths on the front doors!) And out back, Ken and Becky Mebert and Randy Carlo Willis cleared a lot of weeds from the parking lot area. Many thanks to all those who worked so hard that morning!
Chris Burger, Kathy Preston, and Len Hoover patched and repainted the main hallway on the first floor and it looks very nice! Many thanks to them for the several weeks of detailed work involved in that project.
Ken Mebert re-painted the parking lot stripes to make the parking spaces much easier to see. It was a fun project with our new striping tool!
If you have come by in the last few weeks, you will have seen a giant lift working on our main tower. We are finishing the brick re-pointing that has been badly needed. We have done each of the side towers in the last two years since they were in worse shape. This year we are fixing the mortar on the center tower, and since we have the lift machine to get our mason, Mark Arrow, up there, they are also repainting the louvers. Thankfully, Mark doesn’t mind an extra project, or the height.
In the next few weeks, we will be replacing our fire alarm system since our old one is now obsolete — if it were to fail, we would not be able to repair it. So we did much research on a new system and are going to have Sentry bring us into the 21st century. It’s not fancy, but it works with our current security system and will be able to tell us the zone a fire is in if we have one, instead of just that there is one somewhere in the building. And with a fire, anything that can save time can help save lives and reduce damage to the building.
One project on the horizon is the sanctuary roof. Some shingles blew off this year in some of the strong windstorms that we had. We have had it evaluated and it is near time to be replaced. Since we are considering roof work, we are looking into installing solar panels at the same time. One option we are exploring is for a Community Solar Project where people in this region can “buy” panels to supply the energy for their home but the panels would be on our roof. Our church would also have panels to supply our energy and potentially sell extra energy to the power company. Chris Burger is helping us with the research on this possibility.
Those are the highlights from the summer. If you have any questions, please feel free to let us know!
Your Property Team: George Cummings, Ken Mebert, Jean Hill, Chris Burger, Kathy Preston, and Pastor Becky.
A rendering of one possible configuration of solar panels on our building.