All glories to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga

New Air Conditioner

for Srila Govinda Maharaj's sitting room


Dum Dum Park, Kolkata. Sree Chaitanya Saraswata Krishnanushilana Sangha.

Sripad B.K. Giri Maharaj manages, and witnesses the ins-and-outs of, the installation of Srila Gurudev's new a/c.

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Summer heat and humidity in Kolkata prove too much for the single 1.5 ton air conditioner serving in Srila Govinda Maharaj's large sitting room for the last five years or so. In addition to the sitting area, there are several other overheated rooms including one for Sripad Goswami Maharaj, Sriman Ranajit Prabhu and presently Sripad Ashram Maharaj. The floor of the office almost directly above the kitchen constantly radiates that heat into the room where devotees such as Srimati Bhakti Lalita Devi and Srimati Jamuna Priya Devi carry on their daily secretarial duties and services to His Divine Grace and the devotees. Sriman Mahananda das Bhakti Ranjan Prabhu is also found to be working there furiously when service dictates he be in Kolkata. While Srila Govinda Maharaj made it clear that the old A/C was sufficient for him. He kindly allowed that some additional cooling was acceptable for the devotees and guests working and visiting there. He also conceded that a backup unit would be useful in case the old one broke down. That, he said, was "Srila Guru Maharaj's system." The following photo journal outlines the installation process along with more than you'll ever want to know about the workings of an air conditioner.


The air conditioner installer begins unpacking the new 'LG, 2 ton split A/C system' for the sitting room.


This split system incorporates an indoor 'blower' and a compressor/heat exchanger that goes outside the building. This is a very efficient system with these advantages: since the compressor is located outside, the only noise inside is that of the squirrel-cage fan in the blower unit. This type of fan is very quiet and efficient. The outside compressor can be made larger and heavier since it doesn't have to fit in a small window. This makes for a more efficient heat exchange. The largest part of the service required is also for the compressor portion, which is easily accessible to the technician and doesn't disturb those indoors.


Lines carrying coolant to and from the blower are attached by the installer.


Here the technician's assistant helps to route the lines through the wall to the compressor unit outside.


Nimai Prabhu, one of the devotees of the Kolkata Math connects new power lines from the main service entrance to a new dedicated outlet for the A/C. He also installed many new electrical outlets to supply the ever growing needs of the power hungry Western devotees with their computers, cameras, phones, battery chargers and so forth.


Here, the installer is running one of the coolant lines to the compressor.

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