Organ

History
Some may remember that our church came with its very own built in organ.   While it was functional; the building was broken into years before we bought it the thieves took many of the small pipes as well as almost all the chimes from the basement organ room.   Later when we decided to abandon the organ we cut the cables from the console so we could move it out of the way for our extended stage.

The Professionals Survey
Early on Dan White had our organ reviewed by a professional organ company to see what it would take to get it up to snuff.  The report showed 228 pipes missing, and 21 chimes.  This was almost half of the pipes in the basement.  There were also 450 pipes in the attic chamber that were not touched.  Organ pipes typically come in sets called 'ranks' but them thieves took parts of 5-6 ranks which means trying to get parts of ranks or replacing them completely.

The cost to get new pipes would be around $15,000, then a new solid state signalling system would cost $20k (since we cut the organ free).  Add in labor and we were looking at maybe $50K on the low end...  Then there is this quote from the organ company I found funny/sad

"But, there are further considerations. As a former Balcom and Vaughan employee who helped to care for this organ - I can tell you that it is probably both the strangest and worst organ installation in Seattle if not the state. Why they chose to place pipes in the attic and the basement is beyond me. And while the Great, Choir, and Pedal will remain mostly in-tune with one another...the Swell in the attic is almost never in tune with the other three divisions. And this is simply because the pipe organ is a VERY temperature-dependent instrument. It will only be in tune at the temperature at which it was tuned. The Swell in the attic is always hotter than the Great/Choir/Pedal in the summer. But even in winter, the Swell heaters keep it warmer than the basement chamber heaters."

Removal

So we gave up on the organ and it sat for quite some time taking up space.  Trying to sell the organ wasn't going to get us much if anything so it is really a matter of finding someone to take it off our hands.  I tried contacting the group that reviewed our organ but I didn't hear back.

For some reason I got tired of it and listed the relay panels on craigslist thinking someone may want to build a relay computer:  http://www.nablaman.com/relay/  I didn't get any computer geeks trying to live in the past but did get someone asking about the pipes.  He also found Puget Sound Pipe Organs and invited one of their members to come and take a look at the unit.  Don't know why I hadn't found the group before but they were a non-profit doing organ restorations.  Both the craigslist person and the organ group were interested in taking the organ away for different reasons, so I was then coordinating its entire removal.  After a few days of them coming the entire organ was gone with the exception of the large wooden pipes we would keep to use for their lumbar (one is 17' long!).

So now we have a decent room to store stuff... and it is already stuffed to the brim.

Future Organ?
The president of the Organ group agreed that the organ installation was very poorly designed (the worst in the Pacific NW!).  Both in having pipes in two places and their location requiring the sound to go up and forward from the basement, or forward and down from the ceiling.  He proposed if we ever wanted a new organ we could have a proper one installed in the sanctuary with pipes on the front side walls, behind the lattice work at the back of the stage and finally in the rear of the room.  Since his group is a non-profit and most labor is from volunteers so the cost would be mostly for the equipment.  A rough estimate of $30-40k would bring a proper organ back.  He also mentioned that his experience showed increased attendance after installing an organ.  As a retired doctor; organs definitely seem to be his calling.  While an organ would be a nice thing to have it will be a while before this could move very high on our priorities for building projects.