Employees and volunteers at the Kootenai Humane Society Thrift Store aren’t feeling the cold pinch of winter this month, thanks to some HVAC angels at J.A. Bertsch Heating and Cooling.

Of the four residential type furnaces that are located in different areas of the store, only one was working this spring, but that was condemned after a gas leak was detected.

“We had to shut it down and were told we couldn’t run it anymore. It had to be replaced.” said Debbie Jeffery, executive director for KHS. “Those furnaces were very old. We’re thinking they were about 30 to 40 years old.”

“So we started looking around, and Bertsch has always been very, very good to us, coming out to the shelter and doing stuff for free for us for a while now, so I talked to them to see if they would go down to the store and make up a bid on what it would cost to replace the furnaces.”

Joel Bertsch, who started the Hayden-based heating and cooling company in 2005, said his personnel didn’t realize the heating problem at the thrift store was so serious.

“I had one of my guys go down there and he came back and said, ‘Those things are bad. Beyond shot,’” Bertsch said. “They (KHS) asked how much it would be to replace one or two of them, so my estimator went down and took some pictures and came back, and we talked about it, and I said, ‘We can definitely set them up with a furnace or two, but we’ve been given a chance here, so let’s just put four new ones in.’”

The estimated cost of the furnaces and installation was $11,000, and took two installers almost three days to complete.

“We’ve worked with and helped the humane society for years. When something’s not working we’ll just go out there and take care of it for them,” Bertsch said.

Jeffery said business at the store has been doing very well lately, while other nonprofit thrift shops have been seeing the winter slow down. “We are very blessed, because this would have been a huge expense for us.”