The inside of the Saxonburg Museum has been dealing with air conditioner problems for months. Butler Eagle File Photo

SAXONBURG — The borough council received three undesirable choices to solve the defective air conditioner at the Saxonburg Museum on Rebecca Street.

At its monthly meeting on Tuesday night, Aug. 20, they voted to go with the cheapest and “least worst” option by keeping and repairing the current one instead of springing for a new one. Up to $1,580 would be provided for the costs of repairing the unit.

The other two options presented were replacing the unit with a 3.5-ton commercial unit, at a cost of $6,185, or pairing a new air conditioner with a new high-efficiency furnace at a cost of $9,990.

“It doesn’t hurt to try and kick the can down the road a couple of years while we budget,” said Aaron Piper, borough council chairman.

All of these options would come out of the borough’s park budget, which has been stretched thin this year due to a lower-than-expected income from renting the park pavilion, because of repairs to the roof of the gazebo outside the museum.

In addition, the borough has already dealt with a string of issues related to the air conditioner in recent months.

“We’re going on two years where we’ve been nursing it along hoping it would hold out, because we just had to replace two A/C units at Cooper Hall,” said borough manager Steven May. “I have to walk a fine line on what I'm spending out of the park, because I need that money for any kind of matching grants that would come through.”

The museum’s air conditioner, which dates back to 1993, uses a type of refrigerant called R22, which is now becoming harder and harder to come by. Since 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency has banned the production and import of R22 in the U.S. due to its harmful effects on the earth’s ozone layer. As such, the only stock remaining is stockpiled or recycled from old units, and doesn’t come cheap.

“It’s very expensive, because (sellers) know darn well that you’re not gonna be able to buy it next year,” May said.

May said a working air conditioner is vital to keeping humidity low in the building and keeping the borough’s priceless historical artifacts intact — especially with forecasts calling for a week of high temperatures.

“The main problem in there is humidity. We have to keep the humidity under 74%,” May said. “A lot of the clothing down there is 100% wool, and we have some quilts in there that are wool as well. If you crest that humidity level, they will get ruined.”

When one meeting attendee asked why the borough took so long to address the air conditioner issue, Piper admitted he didn’t realize the unit was that old.

The borough will seek additional quotes for a replacement for the air conditioner in the coming days.