The Eldred Township supervisors discussed buying air conditioners for the Kunkletown Thrift Store during their meeting last week.

Chairman Scott Clark said that buying freestanding air conditioners is a temporary solution. The township plans to look into other types of air conditioning systems. The West End Food Pantry, also housed in the community center, secured a grant for air conditioner units.

“Again, this is temporary, because we know what the ultimate goal is going to be,” Clark said, and asked manager Donna Deihl how many freestanding units she needs. She said she wasn’t sure, maybe eight or nine.

Jonathan Gula, the supervisor of the Public Works Department, said, “So we kind of figured two per room that didn’t have air conditioning. So the rooms are roughly about 1,000 square feet, and the largest portable unit can do up to 750 feet. But since, you have your height and you have your doors and your people, you want to be greater than a 1,000, so two 750’s would give you that extra 500 feet of cooling, which should, hopefully, lower some of the temperature.”

After some further discussion, it was decided that there are six rooms that need to be air-conditioned and they currently have three air conditioners. With two units per room, they need to purchase an additional 9 units. The supervisors estimate the units could cost about $500, so they approved spending up to $6,500 on the units.

“This is temporary,” Clark said. “You use them for a year, a year and a half, two years, and put them out for sale. I mean, people will buy them. So, when we get to the point where we can do something with the system, whether it be mini splits, whether it be a whole different type of unit, we would make that change. This is really a temporary fix, because it does get hot over there. We have a lot of elderly, older folks that are over there working, and we don’t want anything happening to them.”