The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

October 5, 2008

Theft leaves home owner boiling mad

Thieves make off with boiler

By Dan Nienaber

MANKATO — If you happen to see a big blue boiler furnace for sale, don’t touch. It might be hot.

Greg Ballman is hoping to find the person or people who stole a furnace from a house he owns at 229 Van Brunt St. He was at the house Sept. 26 to do some work inside before it sold and noticed a doorway going into the garage was nicked up.

“Then I went down to the basement and saw an empty spot where the furnace used to be,” Ballman said.

The last time he had seen the furnace there was Sept. 2. He recently sold the house and is scheduled to close with the buyers this week. Now he’s going to have to spend $2,500 or more to get a new furnace in before then.

The missing furnace is a water boiler type, which isn’t as common as the forced-air furnaces in most houses.

It was about a year old, about 3 feet high and about 2 feet by 2 feet around its base. A two-wheel cart also was missing from the house, so Ballman suspects it was used to get the furnace up the steps and out the door.

Thelma Roben, who lives across the street, told police she saw a white pickup from the late ’70s or early ’80s parked outside a few weeks ago. She didn’t see anyone around the pickup, however.

Ballman searched online classified ads to see if anyone was attempting to sell a similar furnace. He found only seven for sale in Minnesota. One, coincidentally, is owned by someone a couple blocks away from Ballman’s Van Brunt Street house.

He went to check it out, but it was larger and older than his furnace.

“I told him my furnace had been stolen,” Ballman said. “He said he’d heard of a lot of things being stolen, but never a boiler or a furnace.”

At least the thief or thieves were nice enough to shut the water valve before cutting the pipe and snipping the thermostat and power wires, Ballman said.

“It could have been worse,” he said. “They could have left the water running.”

A “bonnet,” which is used to vent carbon monoxide out of the house, was left behind, too. If the furnace is installed in a different location, it will need a new bonnet. So Ballman is hoping businesses that sell bonnets will let police know if someone has purchased one.

During an interview with The Free Press, Roben said a forced-air furnace had been stolen from another nearby house that’s in foreclosure. If another furnace was stolen, it wasn’t reported to police.

Larry Kaduce of ReMax, Ballman’s real estate agent, said it’s even rare for small personal items to get stolen from houses that are for sale.

“During the 19 years I’ve been selling real estate, this is a first,” he said.

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