Cool air returns to Fresno’s Valley Animal Center after replacement AC units installed

FRESNO, Calif. ( KSEE/KGPE ) – The Valley Animal Center has been baking in the summer heat for nearly a month after its AC units stopped working. The air conditioning units were finally replaced on Wednesday, allowing the animals in the center’s care to get the help they need once again.

“About a month ago we had some catastrophic failures with the center’s AC units,” said the Valley Animal Center’s Ruben Cantu. “We got to a point where unfortunately for these three units there was nothing we could do to repair them.”

Cantu says the units had been in place since the Valley Animal Center was first built in 2007. The units had lived well past their intended lifespan – and eventually failed while dealing with the record-high heat .

“I think it was a combination of the record high heat, the maintenance that we have been doing over the years,” Cantu said.

“It’s kind of like a car. You know, you could put 300,000 miles on a car, you put 500,000 miles on a car, but sometimes you don’t even make it to 100 [miles] before you’re making major repairs. It’s just how it goes with mechanical things.”

Cantu says the lack of air conditioning not only made work uncomfortable for staff but even led to the center pausing dental services for a month, limiting several other services, and causing the clinic to lose countless temperature-sensitive medicines.

“We’ve had to remove, replace and kind of rework how we’re doing everything in our clinic services to make sure that we can still operate close to 100%,” Cantu said.

“The building at its highest point during this outage was about 97 degrees – and it was unbearable in there. It felt like an oven.”

The new AC units were installed by Green Earth Heating and Air; the company was motivated to help when they first saw the need from Valley Animal Center on social media. Green Earth’s owner Lenny Edelbacher said he immediately came into the center and worked with them to “get them a fair deal” on new AC units.

“We’re an American Standard dealer and they’re manufacturing some of the best commercial units out there. So it’s a quality product,” Edelbacher said.

Edelbacher said Green Earth has been working nonstop this summer, seeing countless AC units suffer the same fate due to Fresno’s high temperatures.

“When the temperature doesn’t drop below 80 degrees in the evening, the units are running continuously and they don’t give them time to cool down,” Edelbacher said.

“It’s like driving your car through the desert with your air conditioning up and flooring it, trying to go as fast as you can and you know it’s going to break.”

Edelbacher says the new units will help the Valley Animal Center keep its future power costs manageable and ensure that the center can continue helping local dogs and cats.

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