By David Jones
Over the last 3 months the Capital Campaign has been a beehive of activity.
When we last tuned in, the Music Together Marin room in the basement had flooded. This happens every few years when we have a huge storm. Over the past few months, Tom Lannert has constructed a raised plywood floor 2 inches above the existing concrete floor. If water seeps up through the concrete floor, it will now flow below the new floor and out the door to a sump pump. The carpet is now back down in that room and Music Together of Marin is using it again. Just in time, because the upstairs room they were using was 97 degrees last week!
We have almost finished remodeling the chancel men and women’s room and the Duncan Hall bathroom in the hallway behind the stage. We’ve held 10 mini spiff-ups where two or three people come to help. These volunteers scraped, painted, and helped replace old sinks with new vanities. Tom is now in the process of putting in new windows, partitions, lights, and heating. So that's four bathrooms under our belt.
We had about 50 volunteer hours to do the work, and I figure between the volunteer work and Tom’s work we saved about $20,000 over what we would have had to pay contractors. So a huge thank you to all the volunteers.
This morning when you go to coffee hour, I want you to look at the Duncan Hall floor, with all the skid marks and scratches and dirt that's been ground in over the last 35 years. Because next week it is getting re-finished. It's being sanded, and three new coats of finish will be applied. Unfortunately the labyrinth will disappear, but when you come to coffee hour next week, you'll see a beautiful new floor.
Now to the roof. We made it through the winter storms this year with no real damage, but some known roofing problems got a little worse. We have leaks in the flat roof that extends from the Mariposa Street steps along the lectern side of the sanctuary and into the Fireside room kitchen. We also have leaks in the flat roof behind the chancel’s stained glass window as well in the Duncan Hall and Duncan Hall kitchen roofs. The total makes four different roofs that need repair -- a total of 5,600 square feet, or the equivalent of 4 three-bedroom houses.
We also have some failing solar panels that you have heard about. We will replace these in August as follows:
First week of August: all the solar panels will come down.
Second week of August: all the roofing will be removed from 4 roofs, and new roofs will be installed. In addition, 24 solar panels are going to be installed on the preschool roof, where there have never been solar panels before.
Third week of August: 69 new solar panels will be installed on the Duncan Hall roof.
A class action lawsuit settlement against BP will pay to restore the 18 kW solar array we had before. But we are adding an additional 18 kW funded by $30,000 from the capital campaign and $52,000 approved by Session. This investment will save the church about $10,000 a year in electricity cost and may get us to the point where we generate all the electricity we use. The new array will reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation by 28 tons per year, which is equivalent to the carbon emissions for electrical consumption by 25 homes.
Basically, we will have the biggest non-profit solar array in Marin County. And it will help us for generations to come.
In summary: the capital campaign will be spending about $90,000 on the roofing, floor refinishing, and solar panels. We have the money to do this because of your generous contributions. We are only spending money as we receive it.
Thank you to this generous congregation, and please keep those contributions coming, because there is more work to do.
Next up: the bathrooms in the Narthex.
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