Central Unit Stolen

williefb

I just had a Central Heat & Air Unit stolen from a spec house. Yes, the whole unit was removed. That's over $2000 shot down the tubes. It was completely wired in and attached and ready to be charged after my final electrical inspection was completed.

Any advice on how best to keep this from happening again or at least make it a lot more difficult? My new HVAC guy suggested that we might pour a pad and bolt the unit down. Any thoughts and suggestions will be appreciated.

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Willie

Mud Master

Pouring a slab would be helpful...however if the guy(s) were compotent enough to unwire the unit, what would restrict them from taking a ratchet and unbolting it?

If you want to go with the slab, I would take it one step FURTHER, and hammerdrill/bolt some heavy steel angle(1''-1''1/2) to the slab, than weld the unit to the angle.

However, I am no HVAC mechanic, so I do not know if the legs of the unit are steel, aluminum, etc...or if it would burn through with the MIG welder.

But, if it could weld togeather..that is what I would do. Than they would have to use a carburundum blade on a grinder to break the weld, which would DEFINETLY cause a disturbance and get some attention.

Or you could drill through the foundation and attach the bolt to the inside of the house, however there are still ways of safely and quietly unbolting it.

JMO

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mdshunk

I was on a job where the Carrier Plus 90 furnace and air handler were delivered at 4:30 pm. When I arrived at 7am the next morning, they were GONE. Police came, not much they could do.

mahlere

Happened to a guy I know on a rehab house in Jacksonville, Fl. He actually found the guy who took the unit and bought it back for about $100. This time when they installed it, they poured the slab, then placed the condenser in the slab. it'll be a pain to swap out, but no one will be borrowing it.

bill r

PC-based video surveil is pretty cheap nowadays. Soon as the builder gets electric onsite.. For probably $1K-$2K...move from site to site. etc It won't stop 'em, but it might give the cops a chance

Tscarborough

I was on a scaffold, talking to a customer when one of his guy's drill quit working. We looked down and two yahoos were running across a field with his generator. They put it in a pickup and were gone before we got down off the scaffold! Houston at it's finest.

concretemasonry

Have you considered that it was stolen by someone that knew it was new, partially installed and no one would be around?

Stealing fully installed, operating units is very rare. If so, you may be safe once it is operational or no worse off than anyone else in the neighborhood.

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Dick

Engineer, designer and consultant recently active domestically and internationally on construction and design in about 35 countries.

mdshunk

I agree. The case that I mentioned, the units were still in the cardboard boxes. Pretty easy to take. Houses under construction are not normally ever locked in my area. Seldom are they even locked when they're completed and being shown for sale. In my neck of the woods, pretty much anyone can walk right into a new home under construction. I do so all the time, in the evenings. Helps me keep a finger on the pulse of construction trends. Nobody even questions you, if they're there. They don't know if you belong there or not, most times.

JohnJ0906

Did a job site back in '92, where the outside units got stolen a LOT. After the first 2 or 3 they learned how to pull the disconnect so the wire wasn't hot when they cut it. 15 or 20 as I recall. Finally, the builder started installing on the day of final inspection. It was suspected but never proven that someone from the HVAC contractor was doing it.

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John from Baltimore
"One Day at a Time"
All replies based on the 2008 NEC

GregS

We had one job site where a bunch of guys came in one night and stole ALL the windows out of 5 houses.. Just went around with a recip-saw and cut the shims and pulled them right out.

Another time 20 furnaces all completely removed. I suggested chaining them to the basement jack posts and the head guy said they tried that before and they just knocked the jack posts out causing more damage.

I now mount cameras on all the job sites.

We had a guy come twice over a weekend and lift about $1000 of plywood. I nailed down the time, dumped the video to CD and gave it to the police. They are now looking for him.


Computer based cameras are relatively cheap, portable, and you can watch them from anywhere on the internet (all our trailers have cable to them, benefit of the infill we do) I record the video on the computer in the trailer and send it out to our main office over the internet.. That way if they take the computer we'll at least have that recorded back at the office.

K2

For my vacant properties I have a couple of $10 stick in secutity signs, a couple of $12 temp mounted portable motion lights, (one that will turn a radio on inside), a couple of $13 battery powered motion alarms inside. Noise and lights will keep 99% of the bad guys away.

Security can be perception. When my wife was single she always kept size 12 men's boots outside her door. I always had a huge dog dish on the front porch for water for the birds and squirrels. People would always ask if my dog was tied up. I didn't have a dog.

Driftwood

I've heard where they come in and just steal cams from comercial
buildings !

williefb

This unit was COMPLETELY installed.

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Willie

dirt diggler

um ... pay your bills?



j/k

sorry to hear of your loss ---that's just wrong

Magnettica

I see it more and more often around here that private contractors are installing fencing around their jobs. I don't know how much that costs to do but I'm sure it's well worth the effort to figure it into your overhead. It has to be cheaper than getting ripped off all the time.

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hrscammisa

Not to sure what we can do to stop this kind of crap from happening.when i was little on my dads projuct of 150 homes they had a securtiy guard on watch. And the appliances were missing now and then come to find out it was the gards.If they want it bad enough they will find a way.But good lighting and all the other stuff on here should help.I hate a f---- thief.

JasontheMason

What cameras do you use?

williefb

I guess it could be worse. I just found out that another contractor had the wire stripped out of a house twice with a central unit stolen and the landscaping

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Willie

troubleseeker

Bolting the unit through the bottom pan puts the element of time in your favor. Most of these thefts are complete in under two minutes. They do not "unwire" the unit, just pull the disconnect and take a pair of bolt cutters to the wires and freon lines. They are usually not going to take the time to remove the fan grill and try to reach down into the unit to locate and remove a couple of nuts from anchors that were set into a poured pad.

GregS

Depends on the situation. Large sites Mintron Starlights, great for long distances in low light. Small sites, just your standard cheap camera with 24IRs in them.

Most of our sites are infill executive townhomes, so usually pretty small.

No IP cameras. Too much of a premium.