Hey everybody…
It has come to my attention that there are some folks in our neighbourhood who could use some help fighting the summer heat. These are vulnerable individuals, including seniors and persons with disabilities, who live in the social housing around the corner from VHS whose window-mounted a/c units were confiscated in order to bring the building into compliance with new COV bylaws that prohibit such units. (never mind that in the June 2021 heat wave, 619 British Columbians died of heat-related illness, most of them seniors. There isn’t a Picard face palm big enough for this, folks.)
By a bit of good luck and a lot of good communication, we can help to put a dent in this stupid problem with a relatively small amount of volunteer effort. The Amazon donation program can potentially get us an additional 15 or so fans that are in need of switch replacements, and there’s a Hack Spacer who lives in the building who can make sure the fans get where they’re needed.
How can you help?
1: come fix a fan or two! It’s a fairly easy repair to change the switch out for a new one, and for those who aren’t comfortable just jumping in, we’ll be arranging a Switch-and-Bitch (I hear your groan) once we get parts in, watch this space.
2: if you are aware of any a/c units that are in good working order but need to be re-homed, let me know and I’ll get it where it needs to go. This can include window-mounted units, which we can hack into hose-type if we need to.
3: if you know people in politics or public health who might be interested in addressing this issue, send them my way.
Edited to add, because I entirely missed the forest for the trees, a big thank-you and much credit to @JohnC for flagging these as a potential VHS project, sourcing the correct replacement part, and working to hunt down extra fans to make this happen.