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| New Cooler – Stocked and Ready |
It’s in, it’s up and it’s running! I’m talking about the new Buzzy’s Beer Cooler that replaced the old one. I purposely haven’t mentioned anything about this process because I didn’t want to jinx anything. As it turned out though I probably should not have been worried about that because it’s been a very long five months replacing the old one with or without any perceived jinxing on my part.
The old cooler caught fire on 9 June of this year (for previous post on this click here.) Thanks to the efforts of Ray Mercure and his co-members of the Ridge Fire Department the fire was quicky extinguished. What could have been an ugly incident was quicky contained thanks to the Fire Department’s efforts.
The old cooler had seen its better days and the fire damage was sufficient enough to decide that the best course of action was to purchase a new one vs. putting anymore Buzzycoin into repairing it. Thus, the fire served as the catalyst for pursuing a replacement.
For insurance purposes I got replacement estimates. Thanks to Rick Raley and his staff’s ‘s efforts at Combs Drury Insurance this part of the process went very smoothly. That said, it still took some time to work thru it all before I could place the order for a replacement cooler.
I then learned that the purchase of a big, commercial cooler is not a simple matter of buying one off the shelf or from say Best Buy. You have to go thru a dealer who then orders it from a manufacturer. Accutemp Robbie McKay guided me thru the purchase process and around the first of August we placed our order with Ashland Equipment located in Aberdeen, Maryland for a replacement cooler. Lead time for manufacturer Beverage-Air was 8 weeks which meant mucking my way thru the rest of the summer season without a full up-and-running beer cooler.
And then that schedule slipped until it was more like 3 months before the cooler was completed and delivered from Beverage-Air’s Winston-Salem North Carolina factory. Thus, the new cooler wasn’t delivered to Buzzy’s until the first of November. Ned Pratt and Bob Wright helped me prepare for the new one as we upgraded the electric and shored up the flooring to accommodate it.
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| Ashland Crew Installing New Cooler |
On the day that the new cooler was delivered, I was so excited to receive it and have it put in place that I never noticed nor thought to ask about the exterior compressor for the unit. I called the driver after he left and was informed that no compressor was included in the order. I immediately called Robbie.
For a couple stressful days, Robbie negotiated back and forth with the Ashland folks to ensure that the quote we received had indeed included an external compressor. Thanks to Robbie’s efforts in working with Sheila at Ashland Equipment the matter was resolved and a compressor was delivered a couple days later. (However, during the interim, I had to endure inquiries from some of my Buzzy friends along the lines “How could you be so dumb to order a cooler and not the compressor to go with it!?”)
When the new compressor was finally delivered, Robbie hooked it up and got Buzzy’s back to once again having a real deal beer cooler albeit 5 months after the old one had crapped out.
My thanks to all the above-mentioned folks who assisted in this effort including Jenny, Anna, Pam, Lisa, BJ, Teri and Kayla who had to deal with constantly re-loading beer into the smaller coolers.
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| Kim and Tim Ridgell Sitting in Old Cooler; JW Unimpressed |
Ultimately however, it was well worth all of the hassle and the delays. What’s the old saying about good things coming to those who wait?