We have a number of remarkable ministries here at Arch Street. Many of them are ministries that simply don’t happen anywhere else. One of the best is our volunteer crew doing the Mechanical Overhaul Project for the 60 year-old building that we are in. The volunteers are renovating the heating, cooling, ventilation, electrical, and other mechanical systems. Most of the systems coming out are 60 years-old and are very energy-inefficient. Many of the systems being installed are state-of-the-art. We expect to see a huge savings in energy usage and cost. Also, the new systems will be more reliable and easier to control.
A very big day in this overhaul process was on Saturday, November 22. The great volunteer crew (Kevin Sheehan, Jim Gorman, Ken Dwyer, David Crocini, Don MacKenzie, Norm Lavoie, and Br. Chris Coccia) worked with some contractors from 6am to 6pm to replace the cooler tower on the roof. The undertaking was huge: Close off Otis Street, bring in and set up a crane, disassemble and remove a huge 60 year-old cooling tower from the 12th floor roof, get that old tower carted away, and lift up and install the new, smaller, energy-efficient cooling tower on the roof. We need to say a big thank you to these guys. The amount of coordination needed in order to get that to happen all in one day was amazing.
What follows is the PowerPoint and movie slideshow which shows sequentially what happened that day. You can see that these pieces of equipment are not small! The huge piles of wood that had to be moved were from the inside of the old cooling tower. We are grateful that we had a reasonably good weather day to do all of this work. Thank you, volunteers and contractors. Great job!
Fr. Thomas Conway, OFM
Executive Director
PowerPoint: Shrine Tower Replacement 11 22 2014
Slideshow: Shrine Tower Replacement 11 22 2014