Is Your Air Conditioner Secured?

June 7th, 2007 | Bob Brown | Property Issues, Crime

It was only a few months ago that several thousand dollars worth of electrical cable was stolen from our new building project. One of the theives had been employed by a contractor at the site, he knew when a new shipement of cable was arriving, and with the help of an accomplice he made off with something he could easily sell for several hundred dollars.

The price of metals like copper has gone high enough that criminals are hitting targets you wouldn’t expect. For example: Air conditioners. Consider that an air conditioner has a lot of copper in it, is typically in a hidden location outside of the building, is unlikely to have an alarm attached, and probably isn’t being watched by security cameras.

• Church in Memphis, TN loses an air conditioner and the replacement is destroyed within a week.
• Copper pipes, wires, and air conditioner tubing stolen in Michigan.
• Church and shelter for homeless familes in Nashville, TN both lose air conditioners. Repair at shelter: $30,000.
• Church air conditioner and copper fittings from Lowes and Home Depot stolen in Bowling Green, Ky.
• Window unit and bag of aluminum cans stolen in Lufkin, TX. Aluminum cans?
• Video cameras at Memphis church catch theives robbing copper from 14 air conditioners. $100,000 in damage.
• Live electrical wires and cemetary urns. A “Shocking” Video.

Theives need to cash in their loot at a scrap yard; but considering the profit available to the yards, not all of them are going to worry about the legitimacy of the source.

Recommendations include video monitoring, marking your equipment, and attaching an alarm. Esploding dye packs would be fun as well, just make sure your service guy knows about it.

In other news, Vietnamese fishermen allowed to recover old copper telephone lines have been pulling up broadband fiber-optic cable. Oops.