ATLANTA — Metro Atlanta property owners say thieves are increasingly targeting air-conditioning units, sometimes stripping them for valuable metals and in other cases hauling away the entire system.
The thefts can happen in a matter of minutes, leaving victims without air conditioning during the summer heat and facing thousands of dollars in replacement costs.
Atlanta homeowner Kysii Ingram saw just how quickly it can happen after checking video from his Ring camera.
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Ingram said he was out to dinner with his wife when he discovered two men had pulled into the driveway of a property he was preparing to sell.
The surveillance video shows the men backing a truck toward the outdoor A/C unit before taking the entire system in broad daylight.
“Very brazen because they didn’t care,” Ingram said.
He said the thieves didn’t need much time.
“The HVAC was gone within six to seven minutes,” Ingram said.
Ingram said Atlanta police have not caught the people responsible.
In the meantime, he was left with the bill. Ingram said he spent nearly $3,000 to replace the stolen A/C unit.
This time, however, he added another layer of protection: a steel security cage surrounding the new unit.
“The cage got on it immediately,” Ingram said. “They still can get it with a cage, but it just takes a lot longer.”
Chris Welch, owner of Ornamental Security, builds and installs security cages around outdoor A/C units. Welch told Channel 2’s Ashlyn Webb he’s seeing demand unlike anything he’s experienced during his decades in business.
“I’ve never gotten this many calls about AC thefts ever,” Welch said. “And we’ve been in business since 1992.”
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Channel 2 Action News met Welch at a Vine City Airbnb where he installed a steel cage around a brand-new A/C unit after the previous unit was stolen.
Welch said it’s one of a number of recent jobs connected to A/C thefts.
At a Metro Atlanta Kroger, Welch said thieves stripped copper and other metals from several A/C units.
Welch’s business builds barriers designed to turn what could otherwise be a quick theft into a much more difficult job.
Welch said a basic cage typically costs about $700 to $800 installed. A cage with additional mesh protection can cost roughly $1,000 to $1,200. That’s still considerably less than replacing a stolen system.
Welch said a new A/C unit can cost a property owner $4,000 to $5,000 or more, depending on the system.
One reason A/C systems are attractive to thieves is the metal inside them, including copper.
Copper has become significantly more valuable in recent years, increasing the incentive to steal and scrap items containing the metal.
But there’s a huge disparity between what a thief may get for the scrap metal and what the crime costs the victim.
Welch estimates the amount of copper a thief can remove from a single residential A/C unit may bring only about $30 to $40 in scrap value.
For the homeowner, the same theft can result in thousands of dollars in replacement and installation costs.
As Ingram’s surveillance video shows, some thieves aren’t bothering to dismantle the equipment at the property. They’re taking the entire unit.
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