Portable Air Conditioners Help Veterans’
Organization Out of a Hot Spot

It is a well-known fact that computers don’t do well in high temperature conditions – and neither do customers. “We had about 75 of each in our facility when the air conditioning went down just before Memorial Day weekend,” says Conrad Rowe, manager of Allied Hot Spot in Jacksonville, Florida. “With the help of Atlas Sales & Rentals, Inc., we were able to save the weekend by using portable air conditioners to cool down the place.”

Owned by Allied Veterans of the World, a nonprofit service organization in which veterans help other veterans through fund-raising programs, Allied Hot Spot is a “24/7” Internet café where customers can come just to surf the web or, more popularly, to play sweepstakes games on the computers. Proceeds are used by the Allied Veterans group to fund a variety of charitable causes.

After the 20+-year-old wall-mounted air conditioning system failed on May 22, the indoor temperature at Allied Hot Spot was fast approaching 90 degrees. “Our equipment starts going down at about 85 degrees, and customers were leaving, so we needed to do something quickly,” notes Rowe, adding: “This is not the kind of ‘hot spot’ we want to be!”

Rowe called his air conditioning contractor, Tropic Air, who said it would not be possible to repair the system until after the holiday weekend. He referred Rowe to the local office of Atlas Sales & Rentals, a leading distributor of portable cooling equipment. The Jacksonville office manager arranged for same-day delivery of three 1.5-ton portable air conditioners to provide the needed cooling requirements. “Atlas brought the units over quickly, rolled them in, connected them to our power source and we were back in business! It was as simple as that,” says Rowe.

The three portable units delivered sufficient cooling to the main computer area and a small adjacent lounge until Memorial Day, when the weather outside grew hotter and the crowd inside grew larger. “Indoor temperatures were approaching 80 degrees, so we were once again outside the comfort zone,” says Rowe. “I called Atlas to see if they could bring an additional unit. Even though it was a holiday, they arrived within a couple of hours and installed the fourth spot cooler.” He concludes: “I was very pleased with their services.”