No Charge

May 16, 2016

Congregation Beth Israel is a relatively small shul with a relatively big air conditioning problem in one of its rooms.

"It was routinely getting into the low 80's," the shul secretary told the HVAC repairman. "We thought the air conditioning for the room should be sufficient, but we had added a number of additional systems and it’s just not working."

The HVAC repairman sized up the situation and provided them with a quote - $25,000. Way too pricey for a shul like Beth Israel.

At shuls, money is never in abundance and they knew they would have difficulty scraping up anywhere close to $25,000. Nonetheless, the shul board had a policy that they get alternate quotes for any significant expense. So they brought in a competing vendor – Marvelous Moishe’s Air Conditioning Repair.

Moishe walks into the room in question and looks around for a minute. Then he picks up a spare cardboard box off the floor and tapes it over the thermostat. "No charge," he says.

“The air-conditioning vent was blowing directly onto the thermostat. So as soon as it would turn on, the thermostat would register the temperature change and shut the air conditioner off.”

The shul secretary reported to the board: "In the end, it wasn’t free and it wasn’t $25,000. As a token of thanks, we gave Marvelous Moishe and his wife Hinda free seats for the High Holidays.”