Preserving New Castle's Heritage

Digging Deep at the Dutch House

2011-07-04T20:29:00.001-04:00

After a long week of excavating, the archeological team from John Milner Associates Inc. has found signs of early occupation in the rear yard of of the Dutch House. Ceramic fragments of Tin and Border Ware as well as thin plate glass are indicative of the late 17th to early 18th centuries. Six of twenty possible test pits have been dug leaving potential for more diagnostic artifacts to be found and assist in answering many questions about the previous occupants of the Dutch House lot. Maps indicate the presence of a house straddling the rear yard of the Dutch House and it's neighbor in the 19th century as well as an 18th-19th century stable. Along with early Dutch artifacts John Milner Associates Inc. hopes to bring light on these early structures and articulate a story about the layering of history in New Castle through a case study of the Dutch House.

The rear yard of the Dutch House will be used as a Native Garden in the near future, filled with trees, foliage and fauna for the public to enjoy. The process of planting as well as the future growth of trees and shrub roots will permanently disturb archeological evidence present in the rear yard. The New Castle Historic Society has called upon John Milner Associates to excavate the rear yard over a two week period. Ground Penetrating Radar (commonly referred to as GPR) used in the rear yard indicate several anomalies that John Milner Associates Inc. has begun to excavate in the form of test pits, square 2.5' x 2.5' holes in the ground. Although the anomalies were believed to be only a few centimeters under the surface much more thorough and deeper excavations have been necessary. Thus far, the holes are turning out to be three feet or deeper. The depths of the test pits are similar to those that were found at the Amstel House but still rather deep for the area.

The progress of the excavations at the Dutch House relies heavily on the support of volunteers. There is always work to do with screening and artifact cleaning. Volunteers this week have already helped enormously. It's your history, come and be a part of its unveiling!

A New Contributor!

2011-06-28T13:16:00.004-04:00

We just started a two-week archaeological investigation in the rear yard of the Dutch House property. The work is being done by John Milner Associates. Their summer intern, Mary Jachetti, will be posting occsaionally to this blog to keep everyone up-to-date on what's happening with the dig. Check in frequently to read her updates from the field.

We're also planning a public "Archaeology Day" at the Dutch House on Saturday, July 9. Come out and learn about historical archaeology an see what discoveries are being made - quite literally in our own backyard!

Summer History Projects

2011-06-09T09:19:00.007-04:00

It's been a while since we've had an entry on the blog...we haven't been working on the houses recently but we are just getting started with few really interesting projects...

- We have a Museum Studies intern from the University of Delaware working with us this summer to develop an audio walking tour of the New Castle Historic District. She's just finished her first week here and is recording her progress in a blog for the Museum Studies program...check it out here.

- We're going to be conducting a Phase II archaeological investigation in the rear yard of the Dutch House lot - probably beginning in July. Last fall we had a ground penetrating radar study completed, and that suggests there may be some very interesting features in the yard. Stay tuned for more...

- Finally, we're working with the Newlin Grist Mill to make bricks that will be used to restore the hearth in the Amstel House. We'll be completing all steps of the process ourselves. The project will also start in early July and we hope to fire the bricks on the first Saturday in October up at Newlin.

Check back to learn more about these projects throughout the summer!

Wilderness Battlefield Saved!

2011-01-26T14:48:00.002-05:00

Great news! Wal-Mart has abandoned its plans to build a SuperCenter on land adjacent to Wilderness Battlefield outside Fredericksburg, VA!

Click here for more information.

Historic Preservation is Good For Delaware!

2010-03-04T15:09:00.005-05:00

Next Tuesday, March 9, at 2 pm, Governor Markell is holding a press conference in front of the Queen Theater at 500 Market Street in Wilmington to announce his support for the reauthorization of the Delaware Historic Preservation Tax Credit Program.

Since 2001, the program's $34 million in tax credits have helped rehabilitate 75 buildings, generated more than $166 million in private investment, and yielded almost $90 million in household income.

Now is an excellent time to contact your state representatives to let them know that you support the reauthorization of the Delaware HIstoric Preservation Tax Credit Program.

For more information about the impact of this program on Delaware, check out the two new reports that are available on the State Historic Preservation Office website here.

President Proposes Termination of Two National Preservation Programs

2010-02-02T13:22:00.007-05:00

In his new budget proposal to Congress, President Obama has called for the termination of the Save America's Treasures and Preserve America programs.

Save America's Treasures has helped preserved three major New Castle buildings: The New Castle Court House, The George Read II House, and the Bellanca Service Hanger on Rt. 273.

Elsewhere in Delaware it has funded the preservation of the Grand Opera House, the Smyrna Opera House, Gibralter, the Lewes Maritime Park, the Overfalls Lightship, & Andrew Wyeth paintings.

Preserve America promotes tourism in historic communities. Delaware communities that have benefited from the Preserve America program include Dover, Milton, and Lewes.

To read more about these budget cuts, take a look at this entry from the NationalTrust's PreservationNation blog.

Promoting Historic Windows

2010-01-26T16:14:00.004-05:00

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is doing alot of work to publicize the many benefits of keeping historic windows in place rather than replacing them. Follow the link below to see a nice piece that aired on the local Fox News show in Washington DC earlier this month.

Historic Windows Get Some Love...

240 Year Old Tree

2010-01-09T10:36:00.003-05:00

I came across a great story about one man's 50-year fight to keep an historic elm tree alive against all odds in Yarmouth, Maine.

Check out the story at here.

Mike

Window Workshop - January 23

2010-01-09T10:22:00.003-05:00

In October, the New Castle Community History and Archaeology Program (NCCHAP) sponsored a window repair workshop at the Read House. The workshop, through demonstration and commentary, focused on removing sashes as well as general historic repair issues.

On January 23, 2010 from 9:45 to 11:45 am, NCCHAP will sponsor a follow-up workshop at the Read House to demonstrate window sash reinstallation.

During the workshop, Save America's Treasure's project carpenters will reinstall the sahses of the facade Palladian window, the most monumental in the house. The reinstallation process will be explained step by step, and participants will be able to ask questions about thye repair and reinstallation of their own historic windows.

Workshop admission is free, but space is limited, so reservations are necessary. Please contact Read House director Michele Anstine at 302-295-1002 or manstine@dehistory.org to reserve your space today!

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For more information about preserving historic windows, check out John Leeke's great website, Historic Home Works. John has a lot of resources available including articles, videos, restoration reports and a forum to share solutions. His website is www.historichomeworks.com.

Thanksfor the info John!

Mike

On My Windows & Weatherization Soapbox

2009-12-17T12:02:00.006-05:00

Windows and weatherization have been in the news a lot lately with President Obama pushing a for Americans to make improvements to the energy efficiency of their homes. He's spoken a lot about replacing windows, and not so much about repairing existing single-pane windows or making small changes that will improve their efficiency. This is at odds with his other "green" initiatives, and seems to be the result of much lobbying from the replacement window industry.

There are several problems with replacement windows from a "green" perspective. Primarily because no one from the replacement window industry talks about the entire energy life-cycle of a replacement window that includes manufacturing the window, transporting it, and disposing of it when its useful life is over. Here are some "green" issues to consider:

They are expensive - with estimates for payback periods through energy savings of between 20 and 40 years (and some even longer). And guess what...the windows won't last that long, so you'll be on your next set of replacement windows before you're done paying for the first ones! (see below)
They cannot be repaired (maybe this is why they are called "maintenance free"!)
Their seals will fail after about 15 years - sometimes sooner - though it's usually after the warranty has expired. Then you'll need to replace your replacement window!
New windows require a lot of energy to manufacture, uses up natural resources (wood), and introduces toxic chemicals into the environment during the manufacture of vinyl, and again when the failed window is taken to the dump. They also have to be transported to your site - often from across the country requiring use of fossil fuels and adding to air pollution.
Wood used in new windows is "new-growth" wood. Because it grows so quickly, it's softer and less resistant to deterioration and insect damage than old-growth wood that was used to manufacture older and historic windows.
Old windows that are being replaced end up in landfills. Besides taking up space in the landfill, it can also introduce lead into the environment (you don't really think all those contractors are mitigating the lead paint before dumping those old windows do you?)
The money you spend on buying replacement windows leaves your local economy (unless you live in a town where a window manufacturing plant is located and buy them from a locally-owned retailer).

From a jobs creation standpoint, fixing up your old windows is far better than replacing them. It's a more labor intensive process than installing replacements, and the jobs are entirely created in your local economy. Caulk, glazing compound, and glass is pretty cheap - so are replacement sash cords - paying someone to do the work (if you don't just do it yourself) is good for your local economy, and generally good for your own wallet!

From a historic preservation perspective, it's pretty simple...They're not your original windows - they are a substitute. And they look like a substitute! They don't match the look of your house. Windows are very important in defining the character of buildings - change the windows and you'll dramatically change the appearance of your house.

In general, a much "greener" and better alternative is to fix up your original single-pane windows. Regardless of what the replacement window manufacturers tell you, single pane windows with a storm (interior or exterior) and some judicious use of caulk can be as efficient as a new replacement window. In some cases they provide better efficiency because the insulating factor of a window comes from the air (or other gas) between two pieces of glass. Since the space between a single pane window and its storm is wider than the space between two pane of glass in a replacement window, its insulating factor is higher.

Also, if you repair your old windows so that both the top and bottom sashes are working, then in warmer months when you raise the lower sash to let cool air in, you can also lower the top sash to let warm air out. This natural ventilation system will keep your house cooler and reduce those giant electricity bills for air conditioning!

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is on top of this window issue and is working to get the Obama Administration to understand it. They have a lot of resources available online for homeowners and other historic property owners. Check our their Weatherization Guide for Older and Historic Buildings at http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/weatherization/

At our historic sites, we'll be tackling some window projects at the Amstel House after the holidays. The primary window project is the installation of interior storm windows throughout the building. These interior storms will help us with improving the energy efficiency of our historic single pane windows and limiting UV light to the interior (which damages objects over time). We'll also be doing our share of caulking as well as adding insulation to attics and cellars.

We're looking into scheduling a workshop to discuss storm windows and maybe glazing repairs sometime in January or February (stay tuned for more info about that).

Dutch House Logs

2009-12-17T11:09:00.011-05:00

Our carpenters tackled the challenging replacement of a hand hewn joist in the Dutch House cellar last week. The original log joist was severly deteriorated - primarily due to old insect damage. the joist was supposed to be supporting the first floor along the west side of the building but really wasn't doing much of anything. The tenon of the joust was gone and the end of the timber was just floating.

The whole joist was not damaged - so we only need to replace about 12 feet of it. The section of the old log that had to be removed was cut into pieces with a chain saw. Here's a pic of the old log laying out on the curb...I think you'll see why we had to replace it!

The replacement timber is a hand-hewn oak timber that was salvaged from another historic structure. It was cut to rough size before carrying it into the cellar, and final cuts were made once the old timber was removed.

It sounds relatively straightforward, but the joist was located directly above the buildings main electrical panel, security panel and sprinkler system and all their associated wires. Oh yeah...and the gas lines and meter too. Earlier this year we had an electrician move the panel and loosen the wires so the carpenters had some room to work with - though not very much! Here's what it looked like installed:

The new joist needed a tenon on one end, and a lap joint on the other where it would be joined with the remaining section of the original joist. Here's pic of the completed lap joint (the new joint is coming in from the left side of the photo):

A new 6" x 6" post was placed directly beneath the lap joint for support. We also added a second 6" x 6" in to support another of the original joists nearby:

Once the joist was installed, shims needed to be used to fill the gaps between the uneven surface of the hewn log and the floor boards above. Here's a pic showing both shims and the tenon-end:

In addition to the replacement of this joist, the bulkhead for the cellar doors was reinforced with steel:

And that pretty much wraps up the structural work at the Dutch House, as well as the projects there in this phase of our work. When we finish the Amstel projects we'll see where we stand with funding and see if we can tackle some additional projects there.

Was it or wasn't it...

2009-11-24T13:57:00.025-05:00

...here in the 18th century?

That's the question we've been grappling with regarding a doorway between the original kitchen of the Amstel House and the second parlor - which functioned as a dining room during certain hours of the day in the 18th century. Here's a pic of the doorway (on the right) and the rest of the wall before we started our accessibility project. The original kitchen can be seen through the doorway beyond the hall:

On the near side of the doorway is some c. 1970 trim. On the far side of the doorway, there is no trim - instead the top of the opening is arched and finished in plaster. It reminds me of some arched doorways I've seen in local houses built in the 1920s and 30s. In my mind, this reinforces the idea that this wasn't an original doorway opening - at least not in its current configuration.

Here's some more background...

Here's a HABS drawing of the first floor of the Amstel House as it appears today. The doorway in question is the one with a red circle around it. It's also important to know that the two current windows that have green squares around them in the floorplan were doorways in the 18th century (we're confident of that!)
A few years ago we had an architectural historian examine the Amstel House, and he had insufficient evidence to be able to say for certain whether this doorway was original or not. If it was not original, there are pretty interesting implications for traffic flow between the kitchen and the rest of the house. Without this doorway, slaves or servants bringing food from the kitchen into the second parlor had to leave the kitchen through one green door and into the second parlor through the other green door, or go through the kitchen yard and enter the center hall through the rear door - either way, both they and the food are exposed to the elements. We offered this possibile scenario in our interpretation of the house though it has always been something that has bothered most of us here.

There are some clues in the nearby architecture that indicate that the wall that the doorway is part of was originally a paneled wall with built-in cabinets on either side of the fireplace. The clues include a break in the baseboard, change in floorboards, ghost lines in the adjacent plaster walls and ceiling, and a nagging sense that something just isn't right.

Here's some pics:

This pic shows the break in the baseboard. This wall is to the right of the doorway in question. There's a vertical line in the plaster directly above this break too, but you can't see it well in this small photo.

Here are two old floorboards still in place near the doorway. The joint toward the bottom of the picture lines up with the break in the baseboard above (you'll have to take my word for it).

Finally, there's a ghost line (more like a plaster crack!) in the plaster ceiling that lines up with the corner of the fireplace, the lines in the wall and baseboard and the joint from old to new flooring. All this evidence seems to support the idea that there was some type of cabinet in this location. The cornice, by the way, is 20th century - installed during an early restoration effort.

Similar evidence exists on the other side of the fireplace (remember Georgian symmetry):

So with all these things nagging at us, along comes our accessibility project this year. We decide that to give people that use wheelchairs full access to the first floor, we need to widen this doorway. Actually we just need to wide the c. 1970 visible frame of the doorway (no masonry involved). As we got underway removing the frame of the doorway we were able to see more of the masonry construction of the arch - and guess what...it looks like the arch was built in as part of the original masonry! No obvious change in the brick units and no change in the mortar - the arch matches the wall nicely.

Here are a few pics of what we found:

The first pic shows the full arch masonry exposed. Then closeup shots of the left and right sides of the arch.

Next we examined the plaster. It was applied directly to the brick of the arch. It looks like the plaster had an early black painted finish on it:

Here's a shot from underneath the arch look up toward the ceiling. The black finish is pretty wide across the bottom of the arch. It may continue underneath the modern finish - we can't tell:

This black finish continues down the side of the doorway opening:

It also continues behind the current baseboard - indicating that there may not have been a baseboard in this location. Instead, the wall was painted black to mimic a baseboard. I've certainly seen this treatment in other 18th century houses (Yes, I'm looking at you, John Chad!) If this area was inside a cabinet, I think this makes a great deal of sense - particularly given the break in the baseboard noted above:

One other thing to note is that the two old floor boards (see photo way above) extend through the current doorway. If the doorway was not there in the 18th century, and it was a wall instead, the floorboards would stop at the interior side of the wall (their ends being covered by baseboard).

So with all this new information coupled with our old, nagging clues, we have a new theory on the design of this wall. I believe that the wall was fully paneled in wood, with a built-in cabinet with shelves on the left of the fireplace and a false cabinet on the right side of the fireplace where this arched doorway is. With the door of the false cabinet closed, it would conceal the arched opening into the kitchen while allowing quick passage between the two rooms as needed. This concept of concealing doorways, stairs, and passages is certainly something that is used in other houses from this period. In fact, it is used on the second floor of the Amstel House - directly above these two rooms and above this very doorway! I like this theory better and better!

Based on this new information, here's a modified version of the HABS floorplan that I mocked up to reflect what I think the first floor of the Amstel House looked like in the 18th century:
So is this the last word on this subject?

I doubt it. More information will probably come to light in the future...possibly through paint analysis that will help establish with more certainty what the first finishes are on the plaster in this area.

Until something else comes to light, we'll be incorporating this "conjectural" floorplan in our interpretation of the house, always being careful to use the qualifying phrase "Based on current research, we believe..."

A New Post!

2009-11-24T13:39:00.005-05:00

OK, so I've been a bit slow at posting lately...it's been relatively quiet on the construction front around here. So that means its time to catch up. Here a few photos of the finished brick accessibility ramp and dry well area that we worked on last summer. Truth be told we still need to install a mahogany threshhold at the door to allow people that use wheelchairs to enter the building. But that's coming soon! Also, next spring we'll plant some grass in the area. We contacted our lawn service to get the same blend of seeds that they used a couple of years ago when the whole lawn was re-seeded.

In the photo above you can just make out the slight incline of the brick ramp as it rises in elevation from right to left. It's very subtle and we are very happy that the overall impact on the landscape will be negligible once the grass is growing in the area again.

This second photo shows the are of the drywell and the pipe trenches leading to it from the house. These areas will be reseeded in the spring. Just off-center to the left in the photo you can see a small bit of PVC pipe protruding from the drywell. This is a temporary pipe that we installed to check the level of water and rate of drainage in the drywell. You'll recall that we hit a layer of clay about 6 feet down and we're concerned about the drainage rate from the well. So far, after several pretty heavy rains in a short mount of time, the well is performing nicely. Now we just need a big nor'easter to give it a final exam (just kidding!)

Here's a shot up the new ramp toward the back door. You get a good perspective of what the height of the new threshhold going into door will need to be. Also, since this walk was an existing part of the landscape, our masons mapped the location of every brick when they originally pulled this walk up. When they laid it back down, all the bricks were placed back in their same location to the walk has exactly the same appearance from above.

Next...the controversial doorway!

Historic Windows Workshop, October 24

2009-10-09T15:04:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, October 24, from 10 am to Noon, the New Castle Community History and Archaeology Program (NCCHAP) will sponsor a workshop at the Read House on historic window repair. Workshop participants will observe the removal of historic window sashes and components such as weights and pulleys. Carpenters will discuss the repair of sashes, frames, and sills. The Read House Save America's Treasures project restoration architect will also discuss the repair of historic windows and the Read House project.

Space is limited; please call 302-322-8411 to register.

This workshop will be complemented by another workshop offered at the Amstel House focusing on the benefits of storm windows and other techniques for improving energy efficiency.

Time Flies!

2009-10-09T14:06:00.011-04:00

Wow! It's October already, and I haven't had a post on here since August! Time to catch everyone up one what's been happening!

Drainage

This is where we left our story in August. The masons arrived and pulled up all the bricks from our rear walkway, recorded their position, and began to did a few trenches for drainage pipes that will lead to the dry well.

Drain pipes that will gather water from two new downspouts at the rear of the building were installed. They convey the water to the drywell - an 7' deep hole in the backyard filled with 3" stone - where the water will safely disburse underground. After the pipes were laid, the trenches were backfilled with gravel and/or dirt. Along the side of the house, a membrane was used to line the trench to prevent any possible leak from impacting the building.

Here's a couple of pics. The first shows the empty trenches that were dug by August 19, and the second shows the trenches backfilled and the height of the pipes when they reach the dry well.

Exterior Accessibility

Once the pipes were installed, the roofers returned to install new gutters and downspouts. We now have two downspouts instead of just one at the rear of the building and the gutter has been pitched correctly so the water won't run towards the building anymore (that's a bad thing!). The gutters still need to be painted however.

Next up comes relaying the brick walk our back. But we want to create a ramp up towards the back door so that the museum will be more accessible. As I write this today, the masons are just finishing up the new walkway. Here's a few pics of what the walk looked like as of Wednesday:

At the point where the brick reaches the door, our carpenters will fashion a ramped threshhold out of mahogany or cypress to make the transition up into the museum shop area. The masons are currently working on the transition from this ramp to the patio out of frame (to the left of the bottom picture).

Interior Accessibility

Inside the building we had to make some minor modifications as well in order to allow someone that uses a wheelchair to make their way throughout the whole first floor of the building.

We added a small threshold in the doorway from the museum shop into the kitchen hallway. It is made out of salvaged antique pine and should eventually darken to match the historic flooring in the hallway. Here's a pic:

Once in the hallway, a ramp is needed to get up into the second parlor or dining room of the house. That ramp was also built from salvaged antique pine. One task still left to do is to round over the edge of the ramp where it meets the floor. Because we installed the boards parallel to the existing floorboards it's possible that someone could chip the end grain if they kick it or drag their feet.

Finally, we also had to widen the doorway into the second parlor to achieve a width of at least 32" to allow a wheelchair to manuever through the doorway. This did not require us to alter any historic fabric. The doorway had been framed in the 1970s so we just widened that 1970s era framing. Since we widened the door, a new piece of molding had to be milled for the top of the doorway to match the existing molding on the sides. The door was removed completely, tagged as to its location in the second parlor, and placed in storage. Here's what the doorway looks like now:

This doorway has been a controversial architectural feature for some time now - we weren't sure if it was original or not. When we removed the 1970s doorway framing we had a good look at the construction of the doorway. I'll describe our findings in a future post!

Landscaping Begins

2009-08-17T10:59:00.007-04:00

Today, carpenters and masons from our general contractor arrived on site to continue our projects at the Amstel House.

The carpenters will be applying painted trim boards at the top of the rake boards at the gable end of the the Amstel kitchen wing and the south side of the Dutch House. The trim board is simply a 1" x 2" that will be fit directly beneath the edge of the new roofing shingles to cover the gap that is created by our layered roofing system (about 1/2"). While the trim board is not an historically accurate element of either house, it is completely reversible and will protect the roof sheathing while giving a finished appearance to the rakes. It allows us to install a roofing system that has a Class A fire rating instead of a Class B. So we are willing to add the new element for the overall protection of the structures.

The masons are here to develop a materials list for their accessibility and drainage project at the rear of the Amstel House. They will begin removing bricks from the walkway at the rear door of the building (the museum shop door). they will be pulling all the bricks up individually and mapping the individual location of every brick so that when they put the walk back down, the bricks will be in exactly the same configuration that they are currently in.

Between taking the bricks up and putting them back, they will install underground drainage pipes to carry roof water from the downspouts to the new dry well in the center of the yard. Then they will regrade the area to create a gentle slope up to the rear door that will meet ADA requirements and allow people that use wheelchairs easy access to the museum.

Speaking of digging holes and walkways....

I need to provide an update about what the archaeologists found. The big finds were a few post holes that might indicate the location of a fence in the back yard, and a brick walk that was discovered about 18 inches below grade where we are going to be placing one of our drain pipes. The post holes could be 18th century - we're not sure of the age of the brick walk - though earlier surfaces were discovered in the trench at deeper levels. Here's a pic of the archaeologists uncovering the buried walkway:

Tomorrow I'll post pics of the completed trim boards on the rakes.

Digging To...er..."For" China

2009-07-29T12:05:00.006-04:00

The next project on the docket at the Amstel House is our drainage and accessibility project. The project includes two things:

1) Regrade the area at the back door of the building to create an accessible entrance to the museum; and

2) Provide a drainage system to get the water from the roof away from the building without impacting the landscape in the long term.

To accomplish the drainage goal we will be installing a dry well in the backyard. water from gutters will travel vis two downspouts to an underground pipe that will carry the water to the dry well. The water flows into the buried dry well and disburses underground where it will not infiltrate the building and will not damage the landscape.

The hole for the drywell is 6' x 6' x 8' (w x l x d ). before we start the project we need to investigate the site of the dry well with the help of a professional archaeologist to determine if there are any archaeological resources in the ground there.

We put a call out for volunteers to assist and this past weekend we started our archaeological dig. On Saturday we had two professional archaeologists and 7 volunteers here, and on Sunday we had one archaeologist and 4 volunteers here. Here's a photo of our progress excavating by mid-Saturday afternoon.

Some of our volunteers have worked on archaeology sites before, but some of us (like me) are newbies. Tim, our lead archaeologist, kept us all straight though. I spent most of my time sifting through buckets of soil looking for the elusive great find. We had two sifting tables working all day:

So far, we've found a variety of artifacts spanning about 200 years of site history (going back to about the turnof the 19th century - we think). Everything from building materials to broken ceramics. We'll continue the dig this coming Saturday, as we hope to reach the 17th century. The Amstel House site was owned by Roeloff de Haes, one of New Castle's early Dutch settlers, so anything we find will add to our knowledge of how the site was used during the second half of the 17th century. Of course to get to the 17th century, well need to dig through the 18th century, and that will yield information about the first century of the Amstel House's existance - our primary period of interpretation in the house.

Before Saturday though, my project is to get rid of the big pile of dirt that is now sitting on the back patio - a result of our sifting process. I've already saved some topsoil for future garden use - now I just need to get the rest of the dirt out of here!

Roof Finished

2009-07-29T11:49:00.004-04:00

The roofers pretty much finished work at the Amstel House on July 18th and everything looks good. We will have a meeting this coming Friday with our architect and the general contractor to review a punch list of items to be finished at both the Amstel and Dutch Houses - primarily gutter work and the installation of a diverter over the Dutch House cellar doors - then the roofers will be finsihed with us.

Here's a couple pics of the finished roof and flashing at the Amstel House:

You may have noticed in thelast photo that the flashing covers the drip course on the chimney. We debated about this treatment after it was done, and discussed whethere that was the best way to handle it. Ideally, the flashing should have been installed beneath the drip course (with a reglet cut in the mortar joint just under the drip course), but with our layered roofing system there realy was not enough room to do that effectively - so we are going with what we have here.

All in all the roof looks great! And everything is dry inside!

Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

2009-07-17T14:46:00.009-04:00

The roofers have been at the Amstel House for three days now working on the roof of the kitchen wing and the small pent roof on the Fourth Street side of the house. They may wrap up late this afternoon.

The did one side of the roof each day beginning with the east side. Here's a pic of the roof on the kitchen wing late Wednesday afternoon:

On Thursday they worked on the west side of the roof. they had to stop briefly mid-day for a pretty heavy shower, but were back on the roof shortly thereafter. Here's another late-day pic:

They arrived this morning and immediately started on the pent roof on the front of the house. It's basically three courses of shingles to protect the big cove cornice that runs between the second and third stories of the house. I took the opportunity to take a few pics once the shingles were removed from the pent roof since we don't generally get a chance to see the construction of this area. In the following pick you can see the sheathing that exists under the shingles of the pent roof. No flashing is used in this situation because the shingles tuck up under the projecting bricks of the belt course (you can just see this to the left of the man's arm in the photo). No plywood or cedar breather will be used either.

While some of the crew worked on the pent roof, on roofer was working on the flashing around the kitchen chimney. You may recall that the roofer decided to go with traditional step flashing instead of the lower-profile flashing option recommended by the masons. This is how the chimney looked at about noon today.

Since the roofers were working above each entrance to the building we closed the Amstel House today. I had hoped we would re-open it late this afternoon but as of now (3:10 pm) they are still cleaning up the area under the pent roof and working on the kitchen roof. We'll be back to business tomorrow!

Civil War Battlefield Threatened

2009-07-17T13:48:00.005-04:00

Please forgive this side trip to Virginia discuss an out-of-state preservation issue. Normally the mantra of preservation is think globally and act locally but I think this is an issue that has national significance and warrants stepping outside New Castle for a bit.

It's been dubbed the "Wilderness Walmart" after the Civil War's Wilderness Battlefield which is threatened by a proposed Walmart across the street. More specifically, Orange County, Virginia is considering a proposal to build a 138,000 sq. foot Walmart SuperCenter in a 51.6 acre development within 1/4 mile of Fredricksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park (which includes the Wilderness and Chancellorsville battlefields in addition to Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania).

For a brief history of the Battle of the Wilderness click here.

The County is in favor of the development because it will provide jobs and tax revenue. Preservationists argue that the development will hurt the long term preservation of the battlefield, and alternative sites are available that are more appropriate for the WM Supercenter. Building at a different location will still provide the jobs and tax benefits that the County desires.

I've been following the story for quite a while, but since the Historical Society visited Gettysburg last month it has risen higher on my radar screen (you may have heard about the proposal to build a casino in Gettysburg which was defeated).

Click here for a map of the battlefield and proposed Walmart location.

I decided to post this because earlier this week the Virginia governor Tim Kaine (D) and House of Delegates Speaker William Howell (R) sent a letter to the Orange County Board of Supervisors urging them to reconsider plans to build the Walmart on land adjacent to the battlefield, and look for an alternative site. Kudos to these state officials for reinforcing Virginia's long record of historic preservation throughout the state.

National preservation organizations have also weighed in. You can read their positions on the controversy here:

Civil War Preservation Trust

National Trust For Historic Preservation (NTHP)

If you want to voice your support for the protection of the Wilderness Battlefield and finding an alternative site for the Walmart there are a few things you can do:

Sign the NTHP's online petition here.

Send an email message to Orange County officials here.

To keep up with the story, I recently added another blog to my blogroll here. If you scroll down the screen you'll see it on the right side listed as "NO WILDERNESS WALMART." It's a blog opposing the construction of a Walmart Supercenter across the road from the Wilderness Battlefield in Orange County, Virginia.

Be Nice To Your Historic Brick!

2009-07-15T15:10:00.011-04:00

One of the members of our historical society missed our June fireplace/chimney workshop and contacted me via email with a follow-up question about the best way to clean mildew/algae/moss from historic bricks (a common problem around New Castle). It affects a wall of her house that borders a shady alleyway. She also asked if using a sealer on brick might be a good way to keep water from driving rains from penetrating her home’s brick walls.

She suggested that I add my response to the blog - a great idea! So…here’s a summary of my response to her:

In general, for historic brick it is always best to use the gentlest means possible for cleaning. That usually means just water and a natural bristle brush. You can try that if you haven't yet, but sometimes staining doesn't respond to that so here are a few solutions that our mason recommends (listed from gentlest to harshest – though all should be safe for historic masonry):

Vinegar and water – though he didn't give me a ratio for this - I'd start with one part vinegar to one part water and increase the vinegar as necessary.

Bleach and water - start with one cup of bleach to one gallon of water. Increase bleach slowly if necessary.

Muriatic acid and water - one part muriatic acid to 10 parts water (Remember when mixing these together to add the acid to the water. Don't add the water to the acid or else it might boil and spit acid on you. Ouch!) FYI...The masons used this solution to wash down our chimney at the Amstel House to remove excess lime from the bricks and mortar, and also to clean the salvaged bricks before using them.

Whichever of these solutions you try, its a good idea to test it first on a small section of the wall and let it weather for a while before going on with the whole project. Always better safe than sorry!

Whenever a discussion of cleaning brick comes up It’s worth noting that there are two cleaning methods that should always be avoided - powerwashing and sandblasting (which is about the worst thing). These methods are generally too harsh for historic brick, and will destroy the hard outer surface of the brick. Don’t let anyone talk you into using these methods on your historic brick (or any other historic materials for that matter!).

Regarding the second question…It's almost always a bad idea to apply any type of exterior sealer or coating (including paint) to historic masonry. Historic masonry - particularly if it was built with lime mortar, needs to breathe to allow water vapor to pass through the masonry to the exterior of the house. Water gets inside walls from a variety of sources including driving rain, condensation, rising damp, etc. I should mention that an exterior sealer will keep driving rain out - but it won't do anything about water in the walls from condensation or rising damp - it just makes those issues worse.

Any water in the wall needs to get out of the wall somehow - normally that's through the exterior mortar joints. If you seal up the exterior surface the water will escape through the next easiest path - usually that is through your interior wall surface which is typically plaster or drywall. So you'll eventually start to see plaster failure on walls that have an exterior sealer. The same thing can happen if you re-point your historic brick with a portland cement mortar instead of a lime mortar since portland cement is so hard (it also will cause your historic bricks, which are softer than the portland cement, to fail).

In looking around the web, you may find that there are some sealers that claim to be breathable (usually these are siloxane-based sealers). They look promising, but don't have a long enough track record to recommend them on historic buildings yet. One of these was actually applied to the garden house at the Amstel House and I'm pretty nervous about it - I'll let you know how it's going in about 10 years. One problem with all sealers is that once they are on the brick they are not reversible. Any sealer that is silicone-based is one that should be avoided at all costs.

If you have any painted woodwork on the wall that has been affected by mildew, a safe cleaning mixture is one cup bleach to one gallon of water. That's very diluted so if it doesn't work right away you can add more bleach a little at a time. Again use a natural bristle brush to do the cleaning. I've used this on the windows at the Amstel House with good results - though I need to do it again (ugh!).

If there is any way that you can trim branches to allow more sunlight into the area or increase the airflow to the alley that might help retard future growth. Also, it might be helpful if during the next heavy rain you take a look outside to see how the water is draining away from the area, if you are getting any splash up onto the walls from roof or gutter water, of if the gutters are working correctly.

Finally, here’s a link to an article from the National Park Service on cleaning historic masonry (http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/briefs/brief01.htm). It should help with the basics though I don't think it covers mildew/algae specifically. The Park Service has a whole series of these articles about various maintenance topics for owners of historic houses. You can see and download them all for free at http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/briefs/presbhom.htm

Always remember...Be Nice To Your Historic Brick!

Catch Up Time

2009-07-15T08:30:00.008-04:00

It's been a while since we've had a post - mostly because it's been pretty quiet around here. But I still need to catch you all up with what has been done.

Before and after the Fourth of July weekend, the masons completed their work on the west chimney. They replaced around 50 bricks, dismantled and relaid the crown of the chimney, and re-pointed the whole thing down to below the shingles.

They also parged the inside of the flues from the top down as far as they could reach - about 3 feet.

Like the kitchen chimney, this one had a void in the masonry between flues - posing a fire hazard if the fireplaces were ever used.

Since the void was visible, we decided to fill the cavity with the same vericulite/cement mixture that we used on the kitchen chimney. Again, our thought process was to incure the long-term survival of the building. We found a problem so we addressed it rather than cover it up. If the house ever has a different owner that tries to use the fireplace, we don't want them to have a bad experience!

Finally, they capped the chimney with metal that slopes from the center down toward each side to shed rain (it's shaped like an upside-down "V", except much flatter). They installed temporary flashing that will be removed once the roofers are ready to build a cricket to protect the chimney.

The chimney was out of level by 2.75" across the width at the top - pretty bad considering it's only about 5 feet wide. They were able to correct it by using some slightly thicker bricks and increasing the size of the mortar joints slightly. The trick was to do this in a manner that would be imperceptible from the ground. In the following pic you can see that the courses of brick rise from the left side of the chimney to the right side:

The results are great - the chimney looks excellent with the chimney mortar matching the adjacent gable end mortar perfectly.

So the next project is the roof on the Amstel House kitchen wing. The roofers arrived today, and the tear off process has started. As I write this, they have removed all the shingles from one side of the house and are in the process of installing plywood over top of the lath.

We're using the same installation process that was used at the Dutch House, so I won't rehash that again here.

The wood shingles will be standard "royals" with a normal thickness - no tapered butt like we did at the Dutch House. We are matching the shingles that are in place on the roof of the main block (that roof is not being replaced since it has several years of life left in it).

In addition to the roof, we'll also be correcting some gutter issues and completing some minor repairs to the metal roof that is on the 1905 rear addition. the roofers should be on-site for about a week - barring any weather-related delays.

Gotta run - I'm expecting our architect to arrive any minute to inspect the Dutch House and check out the progress thus far at the Amstel House.

More tomorrow!

Sharing What We've Learned

2009-07-02T15:21:00.007-04:00

June 29

Tonight is our NCCHAP workshop on fireplace and chimney preservation. But before the workshop, I will meet with our architect and mason to discuss our current progress.

The masons were not on site today, pending the outcome of the meeting above. The roofers were at the Dutch House though and were making progress on the roof. The owner of the roofing company came out mid-day to take a look at the progress.

Later in the afternoon, our architect had a look at the roof and was generally pleased with the progress though needed to address some flashing installation issues with the roofers. It seems that they cut a reglet into the brick rather than into the mortar. This weakens the brick so the architect told them to re-cut the reglet in the mortar, making sure that their previous reglet was fully covered by the flashing. Unfortunately, we now have some cuts in the chimney brick that are unnecessary. However, at least they will not be visible once the flashing is correctly installed - though the flashing itself may be slightly higher than it would have been if done correctly initially.

The evening workshop went well with 25 people in attendance (SRO). Here's a couple of pics from the workshop:

I've received nothing but positive comments about the workshop with several people mentioning that it will help them with their own projects. We'll be hosting more of these types of workshops as we begin to tackle other projects that face many historic homeowners. Keep an eye on our website's calendar of events page for more information about these workshops.

Flash...Counterflash

2009-07-02T14:55:00.008-04:00

June 26

The roofers returned on Friday to begin the rear side of the Dutch House roof, but the weather didn't cooperate. So they'll be back on Saturday to begin.

A couple things about the front side of the roof...All in all it is a pretty straightforward roof on the front side with the only flashing required at the central chimney and where the roof meets the neighbors wall (we're attached on one side).

Since we don't want to disturb the counterflashing or the stucco on the neighbors house, the roofers are taking care to leave the counterflashing in place. They will gently bend it up, install the flashing on our roof, then bend it down, back into place. Here's a pic of the installed flashing - you can just see our new flashing glinting in the sun beneath the tan-painted counterflashing:

For a good general discussion of roofing on historic buildings check out this Preservation Brief from the National Park Service: http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/briefs/brief04.htm

The masons were also here on Friday to work on the west chimney of the Amstel House. As I mentioned in a previous post the chimney is need of more work than we thought. We'll be building a cricket to prevent water infiltration at the upper base of the chimney from rain and melting snow. That job will be completed by the roofing company. So we'll need to coordinate the work of the masons and the roofer. Hopefully, we'll tackle that next week sometime.

June 27, Saturday

The roofers came back on Saturday to complete the tear off on the rear side of the Dutch House. I was traveling with the Society's annual bus trip to Gettysburg, PA so will see the results on Monday.

Monday is our NCCHAP workshop that discusses historic fireplaces and chimneys. We'll limit the size of the audience to 25 people to allow everyone to see the kitchen fireplace.

Until next week...

Let's Go Dutch!

2009-06-29T11:19:00.014-04:00

June 25

The masons started at about 7 am this morning, but I had to leave them on their own around 7:45 to go to the Dutch House to meet the roofing contractors.

Over at the Dutch House, the dumpster has arrived on Monday, but the roofers decided not to start until today due to the threat of rain. So at 8 am they arrived on site, along with a representative from our general contractor. After reviewing the specs for the roofs - and going over every little detail - the roofers began the tear off process. They planned to get the shingles off the front of the Dutch House roof and get the plywood sheathing and ice and water shield installed today so that the house would be water-tight by the end of the day (See previous posts for explanation of why we are using plywood with cedar shingles).

The tear off process went well with all the original shingle lath left in place. The plywood will be installed on top of it. We want to leave the lath in place because it is an historic document of the changes that the roof went through. Based on the spacing of the lath, the saw or lack of marks on the lath, and the nails used to fasten it, it's possible to learn a great deal about the history of the roofing system, and evolution, of the house. Here's a pic of tearoff:

Once they finished the tear off process they took a break for lunch which gave me and our general contractor a chance to climb up on the roof to examine the structure of the house.

If you look closely at the following pic, you'll notice that there is a narrow section of newer lath to the right of the chimney. It extends from just below the ridge to the top of the timber frame (about to the top of the left ladder of the pair in the photo) . This is a section of lath that was added to fill in the space where a dormer had been previously.

Compare the location of the new lath to the historic photo of the Dutch House that shows the dormer:

There's been a lot of lath filled in between the original lath in the top half of the roof (the lower hald is mostly newer lath). The contractor measured the distance between strips of original lath and said that the lath was spaced 10" on center. So...naturally I asked what that meant for the roofs appearance. He said that spacing indicated that the original shingles had to 30" - 36" in length. Wow - that's long! We're using 24" shingles since we are simply replacing the roof in-kind. If at some point in the future the Society wants to restore the the roof to its earliest appearance - the lath spacing information will be useful.

We were also particularly interested in seeing the structure of the the front overhang and any part of the timberframe structure that might be visible once the shingles were removed.

With the shingles removed we had a good view of the timberframe - visible here through the roof lath (above the red fascia board):

Here are some some close-ups of some of the timberframe details for you joinery fans out there:

These photos show just the original hand-hewn timbers, however there are several circular sawn timbers visible as well. My thought is that these are probably from the restoration of the 1930s. I'll need to check our archives to see what was done in this part of the house. It also appears a good deal of restoration work was done on the brick fill between the timbers.

We also had a chance to get into the attic and look around. Besides the requisite old hornet nests, we found some old shingles (1930s - 40s maybe?), and a number of old nails that span the history of the building. I think I may devote a separate post to the nails and try to tie them in with our historical strictures report that was completed a few years ago.

Inside the attic we could also view the door that allowed external access to the attic. It's located directly above one of the 2nd floor bedroom windows. Here's a pic:

We also found some framing that indicated that there may have been an access hatch into the attic from the ceiling in the center stairwell.

Once we got out of the way, the roofers finished up as they planned with plywood and ice & water shield. They were even able to get a couple of courses of shingles and the cedar breather installed. They will return tomorrow to finish this side of the house.

West Chimney Work Begins

2009-06-29T10:56:00.006-04:00

June 23

The masons started on the west chimney of the Amstel House today. The process will involve repairing mortar joints and replacing bricks. As they got into the job, they discovered the chimney is in worse shape than expected. there's very little mortar in place inside the flues, and more bricks will need to be replaced than originally thought.

They started bu cuilding scaffolding to rech the chimney. It was built across the rear 1905 addition to keep the public sidewalk asa clear as possible (even though it gets roped off during work hours).

Here's a pic of the top of the chimney that shows the condition of the masonry at the top of the flues (Note the small "tree" that is growing out of the chimney):

If you look closely at the mortar joints at the bottom of the photo you will see that the joints have been cut so that the brick can be removed. To cut the mortar joints, the masons are using a new tool that allows very clean cuts without damaging the brick. Here's a pic of the tool:

The very top of the chimney will be dismantled and rebuilt, the flues will be parged from the top down as far as the mason's can reach - about 3 feet. The project will take several days but not nearly as long as the kitchen chimney.

More tomorrow...

Well, we're moving on up (moving on up)...

2009-06-23T13:11:00.012-04:00

I saw an interview with Norman Lear the other day so today's title goes back to one of his classic shows...

And we are moving up...onto the roof of the Amstel House to do some work on a different chimney before beginning roofing at the Amstel House. We're also going to start roofing the Dutch House. The hearth will wait...

Here's what we discussed at out meeting on June 15 (included were the architect, mason, general contractor, and roofing subcontractor):

The kitchen chimney is complete and we are very satisfied with the final result. So should the mason's begin working on the fireplace and hearth? Not yet. We have another chimney on the house that needs work. If you're familiar with the Amstel House, it's the chimney that had the trees growing out of it - 'nuff said.

The tree (actually 2 trees) were cut out of the chimney by the masons. The chimney itself needs to be completely re-pointed. There are also several severely deteriorated bricks that need to be replaced, the very top of the chimney needs to be rebuilt so correct bricks that have shifted or are missing, and the caps (currently flagstone) need to be installed correctly or replaced. It's going to be a project that will take a few days to complete. It will require some historic brick (luckily we have extra from our first chimney project), and we'll use the same mortar mix on this chimney. Here's a pic of the current state of affairs on one side of the chimney - the other sides aren't any better:

Now, before we started anything we knew that this chimney was going to need some work so our architect included the work on our initial drawings for the kitchen chimney and roofing projects. We had the whole lot approved by the HIstoric Area Commission at the same time so we could get one permit to cover everything. We weren't absolutely positive that this chimney was going to get treated in this phase though...it really depended on how we were doing compared to the project budget. I'm happy to report we are well under-budget which allows us to do this much needed work too.

We need to complete this chimney work before putting a new roof on the kitchen wing at the Amstel House to prevent any damage to our brand new roof from scaffolding or walking/standing on it. Since our roofers are ready to get rolling, we are going to have them start working on the Dutch House first, then work on the pent roof on the 4th Street facade of the Amstel House then finally move to the kitchen wing. That should allow our masons plenty of time to finish up the second chimney. Once the roofers start on the kitchen wing, the masons will return to work inside on the fireplace and hearth.

Besides timing of work, we also discussed some roofing details. One of the main questions for the roofer was whether they were comfortable with our mason's suggested flashing detail. It's totally up to them since they need to warrant the work. After discussing it back at their office, they decided that they would prefer to go with our original flashing plan so that's what we'll do.

We also discussed how to handle the ridge detail. Before getting into that though I should explain the roofing system that we're planning to use.

Since we may be using our kitchen fireplace in the future, and since our neighbors may use their fireplaces as well, we want our wood roof to be as resistant to fire as possible. To get the highest fire rating (Class A)for a wood roof, you need to use wood shingles that are treated chemically with a fire retardant to give them a class B rating, and use fire retardant plywood as sheathing beneath them. Since wood shingles should never be applied directly to a solid sheathing like plywood because the shingles require airflow directly beneath them to prevent rot, we will use a product called "Cedar Breather" to allow ventilation between the shingles and the plywood. For a detailed discussion of this installation, fire ratings, and everything else you'll want to know about cedar roofs visit the website of the Cedar Shingle and Shake Bureau (it's good to remember that this Bureau is an industry sponsored organization).

I have to admit that I was reluctant to use the Cedar Breather product for fear of not providing enough ventilation beneath the shingles. I did a bit of googling to look for preservation projects where the breather was used. The only well-documented project I found was a 1997 roofing job at the Chowan County Court House in Edenton, NC (Check it out here). I contacted the engineers that designed the roof to find out if they had experienced any problems attributable to insufficient ventilation. They have had no issues - so it has at least a 12-year track record. Our architect and general contractor also have used the product on preservation projects in the past and have been pleased with the results so Cedar Breather it is. (For more information on Cedar Breather visit the manufacturer's website here.)

At the ridge of the roofs we will use a Boston Ridge with an vapor-permeable ice & water shield beneath the shingles, and the cedar breather beneath the shield as illustrated here. This will allow air to escape from the attic, while insuring that the ridge shingles can still breathe. Without a ridge vent humid air will be trapped in the attic and cause the roofing system to fail prematurely through rot.

All of this would be a non-issue if we were content with a Class C fire rating that can be achieved by treating the shingles and applying them in the historic manner - directly on shingle lath. Applying directly to lath that is appropriately spaced allows excellent ventilation. It's a system that has performed well for hundreds of years in the U.S. (with the exception of roof fires).

Enough about that...The roofers provided us with shingle samples so we could approved them before work begins.

These are for the Dutch House. They are sawn on both sides, 7/8" thick at the butt, and have a bevel cut on the end to match the existing Dutch House shingles. In the 18th century, shingles were split by hand using a tool called a froe. Then the shingle surfaces were smoothed, or dressed, with a drawknife. While we could do that today, we decided instead to use sawn shingles which still have smooth surfaces though may show some saw marks. An option that is, in my mind, definitely not appropriate are modern shakes that attempt to mimic a hand-split appearance and are often marketed as appropriate for historic buildings. They are what's on the Dutch House now. I think they are too primitive looking for a middle class, urban artisans house which is what the Dutch House is.

As you can see in the photo, they are slightly thicker than the existing Dutch House shingles which is fine with us and will make them last longer. You'll notice that one of the shingles is very wide (11"), and we don't want to use it as is. A shingle this wide will need to be ripped (sawn along its length) to make it no more than 9" wide. Smaller widths help prevent the shingles from splitting or cupping over time.

These are for the Amstel House (below). They are standard "Royals" - 24" long, 1/2" thick at the butt, and clear (no knots or other imperfections):

We also asked the roofers to provide us with a copy of the label that certifies the fire-treatment on the shingles, and the material safety data sheet. If you are installing a wood roof, particularly on that has been treated with either a fire retardant or a preservative to prevent fungal decay (you can't do both treatments - they're incompatible chemicals), you should ask your roofer to provide you with this information and keep it in your project files. Here's a pic of our shingle label (faxed copy):

They also provided us with samples of the ridge cap that they'll use on the Amstel House (It's pre-made), the Cedar Breather, and the ice & water shield. The ridge cap for the Dutch House will need to be made on site by the roofer.

The roofers are supposed to start at the Dutch House on Monday June 22, and the masons at the Amstel House on Tuesday June 23. Before the roofers get started at the Dutch House, I'll need to get in there and secure anything that might be damaged by vibrations caused during hammering.

That wraps up a nice long post! Talk to you next week when the roofers and masons arrive!

Don't Go Breaking My Hearth

2009-06-18T10:06:00.008-04:00

June 10

The masons have been examining the hearth and have some more discoveries and questions. Before getting into that though, let's finish our discussion of the damper.

Here's a photo looking up the flue. It's dark at the top becasue the damper is in the closed position. There are two wires hanging down. On the left in the photo is the main wire for operating the flue. It runs through a couple of eye hooks embedded in the masonry to help it stay against the wall of the curvy flue. The one on the right in the photo hangs freely.

The main wire connects to a peg located in the smoke chamber just above the lintel. By securing the wire to this peg, tension is maintained on the damper and the damper remains closed. By removing the wire from the peg, tension is released, and the damper flips open (it works on an offset hinge with the weight of the damper causing it to open).

Since the damper works due to gravity, if there is a substantial snowfall sitting on top of the damper, it could get stuck closed. That's what the second wire is for. The second wire can be used to release a stuck damper. It's attached to the opposite side of the damper than the main wire. Alternately pulling then releasing both wires will release the damper. The catch will be avoiding having a load of snow dumped on your head when it opens! Here's a pic of the open damper:

Now back to the hearth...

The masons began investigating around the hearth where it meets the legs and rear wall of the fireplace. As they removed fill and some bricks, they revealed more of the fireplace leg. Interestingly, the legs of the fireplace have whitewash extending about three inches below the current hearth and floor surface. Additionally, the bottom-most whitewashed brick does not have a chipped off corner (remember the rounded corner treatment that we discussed in earlier posts). Since the brick is whitewashed, it would have been visible, and to be visible it needs to be above the hearth and floor level (which it is not currently). So it appears that the floor was originally lower than it is now. Somewhere in my memory I recall that the kitchen floor is not original, but I've not heard that the level of the floor changed too. Here's a pic of the left leg of the fireplace showing the floor level and the whitewashed bricks.

Another piece of physical evidence that supports this idea of a lower floor is a ghost line for the baseboard on the kitchen wall to the right of the fireplace. The current baseboard stops at the point where the hearth begins. Beyond this, its possible to see that the plaster has been replaired where the original baseboard was installed (remember that in the 18th century finish woodwork was typically installed before plastering took place and as a result was "plastered in" so to speak - this fequently results in "ghost lines" showing where the old woodwork was before being removed). The ghost line from the original woodwork is lower than the top of the current baseboard - though not by much. It's a little hard to see the actual line in the following picture, but you can certaily see the bright white plaster patch that was used to fill in the wall where the old baseboard was:

The mason's stopped work at this point to allow us to discuss the findings before proceeding. We have a meeting scheduled for June 15 to discuss the final work on the hearth, and start planning some roofing work.

In the meantime, it's time for me to start getting ready for the annual garden party and plein air art exhibit tomorrow!

Time For A Bath

2009-06-15T13:56:00.014-04:00

June 8 & 9

I'm running out of 1970s TV show tie-ins already...

I just came back from fishing on Lake Champlain with the guys. The weather was great (unlike here recently) and the fish were biting so it was a great trip. Since it rained here again over the weekend, the masons decided to allow one more day for the mortar to dry before giving the chimney its acid bath on Tuesday. Let's check out a few photos of our newly bathed chimney...

This photo shows the newly washed chimney with a good view of the temporary flashing that was installed to keep water out until the new roof is installed. Because it was just washed, it looks (and is) much cleaner than the bricks in the rest of house. Over time, the chimney bricks will darken and be a closer match for the bricks in the rest of the house:

And another view of the washed down chimney.

In the next photo, if you look closely at the mortar joints, you can see small bright white specks throughout the mortar. These are not oyster shells, but rather they are pieces of lime. Oyster shells were historically used to make quick lime (more on this in an upcoming post). The masons added these pieces to the mortar mix after consultation with members of the New Castle Historic Area Commission. It helps the new mortar better match the existing mortar better. Even though a casual passer-by will never see the mortar in a chimney close enough to see the bits and pieces (the "aggregate") in the mix, we want to establish a consistent mortar mix that we can use on all projects going forward including street level pointing.

Following is a good closeup of the salvaged brick at the top of the chimney. You can see how much character they have relative to brick used in new construction, and how much each brick differs from another - unlike modern "restoration" brick. Color, size, and texture were the three main visual characteristics we looked for as we selected salvaged brick for this project. In both this photo and the one above, you can get a good sense of how the glazed header bricks really sparkle in the sunlight. Besides their color, this attribute makes glazed headers ideal for creating patterns in the brickwork, like so many 18th century houses in Salem County, NJ:

This photo shows the installed cap on the flue for the bedrooms corner fireplace (foreground) and the damper on the kitchen flue. Both the cap and damper are held in place with silicone caulk (see it glistening around the perimeter of each?). For the cap, the masons used ceramic tile instead of flagstone. They said that flagstone has a tendency to crack during expansion and contraction cycles and they think the ceramic tile will hold up better throughout those cycles. Also, notice that the top of the chimney is covered in mortar, and that the mortar slopes away from the center of the chimney toward the edge to help water run off the masonry and help preserve the chimney:

Here's a close up showing the very low profile of the damper. It's essentially invisible from street level so has no impact on the chimney's visual character:

The masons will return tomorrow to work on the fireplace hearth. I'll also describe the interior workings of the damper so you'll know how to open and close it.

Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane's dog was named...

2009-06-04T14:30:00.010-04:00

Oh no...If I tell you know now you won't read the whole post. I'll tell you at the end. It's actually relevant to the discussion.

Yesterday the masons were back on the job. They finished up the flashing, did some final parging in the flues and cleaned up the site in time for tomorrow's garden tea.

They are leaving the scaffolding in place because they need to wash down the chimney on Monday. They want to give the mortar a couple of days to dry out before washing it down with a muriatic acid solution (same stuff they used to clean the bricks). I understand that there is a fine line between the mortar being too wet and too dry. If they wait too long to wash it down, blotches appear on the chimney. So...Monday it is.

I also met today with the architect and mason to discuss flashing options and finishing the fireplace itself.

Our mason is proposing using a flashing method that has the flashing come up the side of the chimney just to the top of the shingles. Then it turns into a kerf cut in the chimney (the kerf is technically called a reglet). Once inside the reglet, the end of the flashing is curled upward to prevent any water that might seep in from getting into the masonry. The reglet is filled with caulk. A separate piece of flashing is used for each course of shingles - its length is equal to the shingle exposure plus about four inches.

The advantage to this method is that the flashing is not visible from the ground. He's used it on several jobs in Pennsylvania. Before we finalize the decision to go with this method, we need to speak to the general contractor and particularly the roofer to make sure they are comfortable with the process. After all, they are the one who are going to get a phone call if the roof starts leaking.

We also discussed our approach to the fireplace. We are going to do as little restoration as possible, preferring not to mess with original fabric if we can avoid it. The basic restoration work will be limited to replacing badly deteriorated brick at the back of the fireplace, pointing areas of missing mortar,cleaning up a layer of mortar near the door of the bake oven and replacing a few bricks that are missing from the legs.

We'll also temporarily place some rectangular hearth bricks around the inside of the fireplace where the masonry was removed. These will be a different color than our existing hearth bricks and will help us visually delineate the change in the fireplace. Eventually, we do plan on putting square bricks down in the hearth - probably not until later this year.

That will get us to a working condition in the fireplace while disturbing as little of the 1738 material as possible.

We will also order a big iron fireback, 30" x 22", to protect the rear wall of the fireplace. We think they probably had one in use in the 18th century since there is no soot on the bricks at the bottom of the rear wall. We'll also order an iron lug pole while we're at it, so we can get some trammels in place for interpretation purposes.

As we finished up the meeting, another storm blew in. Like yesterdays, it was short, but much less violent, and resulted in substantially less damage around town. Whew.

I guess that's it for today. The mason's won't be back until Monday so I'm off to the Vermont side of Lake Champlain for a weekend of fishing!

And, of course, I owe you an answer...

Roscoe had a basset hound named "Flash". Flash loved the Duke boys, but hated Boss Hogg.

I watched too much TV as a kid.

Just the good ol' boys
Wouldn't change if they could
Fightin' the system like a true, modern-day Robin Hood

- Waylon Jennings

A call goes out for the Mighty Heroes...

2009-06-03T12:42:00.011-04:00

...but apparently only Tornado Man comes to New Castle. But I'm getting ahead of the story!

June 2

The day started out with very nice weather, though we knew that thunderstorms were in the forecast for the afternoon. The masons started on the chimney quickly. Today they were working on finishing the chimney up. That includes installing a damper on top of the chimney, and installing temporary flashing where the chimney meets the roof.

Why are we putting a damper at the top of the chimney instead of installing it in the smoke chamber like a modern living room fireplace? We want to keep the fireplace as close to the 18th century as possible, and if someone pokes their head in the fireplace and looks up we want them to just see the flue. More practically, a damper at the top of the chimney helps protect the flue from rain and other debris (there is a nearby tree) that will hasten its deterioration. It also will keep animals and birds out of the flue.

To operate a flue located at the top of the chimney a long wire needs to hand down from the damper to the lintel so we can open and close the damper as needed. Actually, its a good idea to open and close chimney-top dampers on a regular basis (at least once a month) to prevent them from rusting and getting stuck in the closed position. Our damper will have a secondary wire to help free it if it does get stuck.

The damper for the kitchen flue has been custom made by our masons. Here's a pic for you damper aficionados:

What about the flashing...Why temporary flashing? Because we will be replacing the roof in a couple of weeks. We're looking at a way of installing the permanent flashing that will make it less visible from the ground (relative to traditional step flashing). More on that in a future post.

The masons were on the roof with about 10 minutes of flashing work left when Tornado Man arrived in New Castle about 3:45. Now, truth be told, it wasn't actually a tornado, but according to the local weather service it was a thunderstorm with sustained winds of 50+ mph and at least one gust of 74 mph was recorded at the airport about 1.5 miles away. Yikes!

While the masons were trying to batten down the hatches topside, I started collecting their tools and brought them inside. Luckily the guys got off the roof safely (it blew in very quickly) though the tarp couldn't be fully secured due to the high winds. Then the power went off. Flashlights in hand, we all went up into the attic to finish securing any openings around the chimney because the flashing wasn't complete. With carpets, tarps and buckets we insured no water damage would occur inside. We found 3 different roof leaks so its a good thing that the new roof is scheduled soon!

The storm was fast and furious - and we were in the attic for most of it - so we missed all the visual pyrotechnics. We did hear it pretty good though! Within 10 minutes or so, it was over. The guys cleaned up and took off, and I went outside to survey the property.

The Amstel House property did pretty well - lots of small to medium-sized branches and a couple bigger than average limbs but no major damage...whew. I better go check the Dutch House and the Old Library...

Off to East Third Street....Whoa!

Upon turning the corner of Silsbee's Alley I met with a scene of complete disarray. A BIG tree down near the Dutch House had fallen across Third Street taking the power lines with it. Luckily it did not damage any houses (across Third Street is the open space of the Green), and it fell right between two cars throwing some sidewalk bricks up on the hood of one of them. It also threw a carriage step about three feet into 3rd Street. Thankfully our city workers were right on it.

Another tree was down across the green. I walked around town a bit and found 7 more trees down: 4 in Battery Park, one on Delaware Street near Cloud's Row, one in the garden of the Read House, and one at the corner of 2nd and Chestnuts Streets. This last one actually did hit one house damaging the roof and chimney. When I saw it it seemed to be suspended by utility wires and was hanging over the corner of another house, threatening it as well.

I took a bunch of pictures to document the storm of June 2009 and will add them all to our archives just in case some future historian wants to hold an exhibit on storms of New Castle. Here's a few photos for anyone that missed the carnage:

East 3rd Street:

East 2nd & Chestnut Streets:

Battery Park:

So now its clean up time! We're hosting a garden tea in the Amstel House garden in two days. I'll spend some time this evening in the garden picking up debris. Problem is...there's another thunderstorm expected tomorrow afternoon. Lets hope its milder than today's!

Sunny day sweepin' the clouds away...

2009-06-03T12:16:00.006-04:00

The weather couldn't be better today - bright and sunny with clear skies and cool air. I'm going to have to figure out some legitimate reasons for being outside today.

Having successfully completed my brick mission, the masons spent part of the morning cleaning up the bricks I salvaged. While they were working on cleaning bricks, I reinstalled the garden exhibit in the Amstel Garden House. It was sort of like being outdoors...the doors were open at least.

Once the masons finished cleaning bricks, it was back up on the roof to get to work on the chimney. At the end of the day they made pretty good progress laying brick and parging the flues as they went.

Your mission should you choose to accept it...

2009-06-02T15:27:00.007-04:00

May 27-29

...is to get about 150 more bricks.

Eh...what's a few more bricks at this point. The masons want to fix the bond pattern from an earlier restoration that doesn't match the wall at the peak of the gable so they need some extras. So I'll make two trips to the brick pile instead of one this week.

They've cleaned all the bricks that I've already salvaged and are in the process of rebuilding the chimney. By Friday, they had just 11 courses to go, and the chimney was visible from the ground:

At this point it looks like the chimney will be completely rebuilt by Wednesday next week. That will make our local Araspaha Garden Club members happy since they are planning an anniversary tea on Thursday.

When it rains it pours around here...but that's another story!

The "Brick" Boat soon will be making another run...

2009-05-29T14:13:00.010-04:00

May 26

OK that title was a stretch, but the latest news is that we need more bricks. About 60 or so more...so when the weather breaks I'm off to my favorite brick pile. I do feel a little like "Gopher" I guess as I go for more bricks. Did you know Gopher's given name was "Burl Smith"? Me either...who cares?

After a pretty relaxing Memorial Day weekend (which included a trip to the budget-threatened Brandywine Battlefield in the true spirit of the holiday), it's back to work on the house today.

Before we get into the chimney project, there's another side project going on at the Amstel & Dutch Houses currently - painting the outbuildings. You'll remember that both buildings just received new roofs, so now its time to paint them. The Dutch House outbuilding (a recreated smokehouse) is getting painted on the outside only, while the Amstel House garden house is getting painted both outside and inside (excluding the ceiling inside which has a nice peeling whitewash look to it that was so in vogue in the 1990s - "shabby chic" or something like that). We received a grant from the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Delaware (who henceforth shall be known as "the Dames" - its OK, "Dames" is politically correct speech for the organization - I worked for them in Maryland for several years) for the paint project. It's great because the Dames originally paid for the construction Dutch House smokehouse way back in 1939.

So last week I pulled down our garden exhibit in the Amstel garden house, cleaned out the cabinet and vacuumed up all the spiderwebs. The painters actually started on Friday and are finishing up today and Wednesday. We decided to paint the Amstel garden house white again on the inside walls and exterior woodwork. We considered painting the exterior woodwork the same historic color as the Amstel House exterior (discovered through paint analysis) but since the garden house is a 1930s colonial revival reconstruction, we decided to leave it white. That will help to visually differentiate it from the main house, and keep that lovely white trim that they were so fond of during the colonial revival. The Dutch House outbuilding is being painted the same color as the Dutch House (red) which is the same color that it already is.

Back to the chimney...

It's raining. So work is limited to inside the attic and cleaning bricks. All the bricks that have been cleaned manually now have to be washing with a weak muriatic acid solution. The solution is mixed in a five gallon bucket with about 1" of acid added to the water - I'm not sure of the water amount. (Always remember your chemistry class and "do as you oughta...add acid to woughta!")

To clean them, the masons dip a nylon brush (on a handle) into the acid solution and scrub the bricks which are arranged in a row on the ground. BTW - Don't do this near any plants that you want to keep alive. Once they are scrubbed, they may require a little more scraping. If so, a final acid wash happens again, then they all get hosed off. Repeat for all sides. Let them dry and they are ready to use.

One issue with this cleaning process that most people don't realize...once the historic bricks are clean, they look like they did in the 18th century - i.e. brand new. They don't look like the brick on the house that has 200 years of grime, mildew, etc. on it. After the chimney is completed, the cleanup process requires some more acid washing, so the mortar joints will look pretty clean too. They will both take some time to weather to a matching patina (Don't you either love or hate that word - patina - thanks alot Antiques Roadshow!). Luckily, the house is at a stop sign on a busy street, so there will be plenty of exhaust to help darken up our new brick, and the chimney is shaded by a tree which will promote mildew (did I say "luckily"?). One thing we decided against is that we don't want to artifically age the brick or the mortar to match right away.

More tomorrow...

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology.

2009-05-28T08:55:00.011-04:00

May 22

OK, I'm going to see how many references I can make to 1970's TV shows in the titles of my posts going forward...

Today, the masons started rebuilding the chimney. The flue for the second floor fireplace was reconstructed along its original path (which had been altered in a previous rebuild of the chimney).

They had to parge the flue as they went. If they rebuilt all the way then tried to parge the flue, they might not be able to reach all the way down inside the flue. Sure...it sounds obvious... but its one of those things that I can see myself doing wrong if I was attempting something like this on my own.

As they rebuilt the chimney the areas that previously were voids are instead solid masonry construction now.

Rafters that had been "free wheelin'" near the chimney now tie in to a header that rests on the masonry of the exterior wall.

Once they brought both flues to essentially the same height, they parged the exterior of the chimney.

Remember the earlier post when I promised gory details....well, here comes the math part (I promise it's not hard...maybe boring...but not hard!).

To insure that the fireplaces don't smoke the flue needs to be sized correctly. A rule of thumb is that the area of the flue opening should be about 10% of the area of the fireplace opening (from my sophomore geometry class I remember that area = length x width). If the flue is too small, the fireplace won't draft correctly and smoke will fill up your room - that's bad. If the flue is too big, it may not warm up enough to create a good draft and smoke will fill up your room - that's bad.

Before we started our project the kitchen fireplace was 64.5" x 58.5" so the area of its opening was 3,773 square inches (feel free to check my math!). That means the flue size needed to be 377" square...but it was only 308" sq. Uh oh.

The fireplace did smoke a bit when we had cooking demonstrations in years past but opening windows seemed to help somehow (besides allowing people to breathe!).

The corner fireplace is 31" x 41" (1,271" sq.) so its flue needs to be 127" sq. (see how easy this is!). But its flue was 168" sq. - its too big!

The point here is that if we rebuilt the flues exactly as they were, the fireplaces wouldn't work right. When we add the fact that we have now increased the total area of the kitchen fireplace opening (back to its original size), we definitely can't use the previous kitchen flue dimensions.

The kitchen fireplace opening is now back at its original size of 88" x 58.5" (5,148" sq.), so it needs a flue opening of 514" sq. to avoid smoking. If the original flue was just 308" sq. they must have had a smoking problem! (more on this in a second.) That might explain why the fireplace opening was reduced in size. It also might explain why a brick arch was added behind the lintle though, because of its design, it probably didn't help much.

So what are we going to do?

Well we have some wiggle room here. Remember that the flue for the corner fireplace is oversized. Additionally, the partition between the flues was two bricks thick. If we reduce the size of the corner fireplace flue, and make the partition one brick thick (which is normal anyway), we can make the flues upper dimension 16" x 32" resulting in a flue area of 512" sq. The result? the ability to breath in the kitchen while a fire is going! The corner fireplace flue will still work too. And the chimney will still be the same size as it was from the outside so we won't be changing its appearance. Whew!

But there's a nagging question here...Why did the original mason who built the chimney make the kitchen flue undersized? Did he not know what he was doing? We don't think its likely that an incompetent mason was hired by the owner. Instead, could it be that the corner fireplace on the second floor was added after the original chimney was built? To compensate for forcing two flues into a chimney meant for one, the kitchen fireplace may have been reduced in size. We're not sure but its something we'll continue to explore and look for evidence as we continue to work in the attic.

Onward and upward!

Parging & Filling Continues...

2009-05-28T08:35:00.007-04:00

May 20

The masons finished filling the chimney voids today. When they finished up they signed and dated their work:

Additionally, they also parged the interior surface of the rebuilt gable wall. Before the wall could be parged they had to clean up the messy mortar joints between the CMUs (concrete masonry units). Here's what the wall looked like at the end of the day:

I was not around the site much today, I had the pleasure of meeting the new director of Preservation Delaware, David Scott, and took him on a tour of Historic New Castle. In addition to visiting our sites, we toured the New Castle Court House and the Read House (BTW check out the Delaware Historical Society's Making History 11:45 blog). Michele from the Read House joined us for lunch at Jessops. We talked about preservation in New Castle and the relationship between Preservation Delaware and local organizations. I'm looking forward to working with him going forward.

And that's it! Another quick blog post...but don't worry, they'll be plenty of gory project detail coming up soon!

Doc' em Dano

2009-05-28T08:06:00.007-04:00

May 19

Documentation time! Pull out the tape measure and camera again! (About now, I'm wishing that I had taken Drafting I in high school!)

I headed up to the attic first thing in the morning to get some measurements and take a bunch of photos. I had some help from one of the masons who made some suggestions on measurements to take and took some photos from on the roof looking down at the chimney.

By the time I finished the notes I made on graph paper were indecipherable to anyone but me, and I was pretty sure they wouldn't do me any good if I didn't clean them up asap. So I headed down to my desk to re-draw the plan of the chimney with annotations. Uh-oh, 10 am...time for a meeting. After the meeting, the normal work day stuff got in the way, cluttering up my brain and blurring the details of my earlier documentation. By about 3 pm I finally sat down to re-write the drawing and here's what I came up with:

Yeah, I know...it doesn't make any sense to me either when I see it at this size in the blog. The full size image or hard copy is much easier to read and understand. So I think its OK.

By the time I finished drawing this, the masons had filled about half the voids with their cement vermiculite mixture. Here's a pic of the void between the two flues (the flue for the second floor fireplace in at the right in the pic). The stuff that looks like clumpy potting soil in the photo is the vermiculite/cement filler:

That's it for me today...more tomorrow.

Examining the Chimney

2009-05-27T15:08:00.006-04:00

May 18

Today an architectural historian from the University of Delaware visited the Amstel House at our request to take a look at our weird chimney.

We started out with a basic review of the house's layout in general, discussed travel patterns through the house, and spent a fair amount of time looking at the exterior brickwork and the interior back wall of the fireplace. That will be my job on the 19th.

She had several questions about the patterns of movement throughout the house, particularly in the kitchen wing that we will try to shed some light on as we discover more architectural evidence during this project.

Regarding the chimney and fireplace itself...

She agreed that its not typical chimney construction. She suggested that we take lots of photos with tape measures in view, take detailed measurements of the chimney structure and draw plans for in cross section.

She raised a question as to whether our second floor corner fireplace might have been added to the original design as an afterthought, or even after the kitchen fireplace and chimney had been completely built (As it turns out, our mason would independently pose the same questions to me a couple days later - more on that in a future post.)

She spent a fair amount of time looking at the back wall of the fireplace and in particular at an area where several brick joints seemed to line up vertically with each other. She questioned whether that part of the wall had ever been rebuilt and whether the oven may have been moved at some point.

Outside, beneath the eaves on all three walls of the kitchen wing, there appears to be recent (not 18th century) work on the bricks directly beneath the roof. She asked if the roof had ever been rebuilt. Her observation of the brickwork, in combination with sawn rafters visible in the attic, and our documentation about a new roof added in the 1870s all seem to support a case for a new roof line. In addition, there is a ghost line on the rear wall of the main house that indicates that the roof line changed (this is not visible from the ground).

More soon...

Whitewash, Wallpaper, and Beveled Butts - Oh my!

2009-05-22T07:48:00.016-04:00

It's been a while since I've had a chance to sit down and tell you all what we've been doing on the chimney project. I'll try to correct that through a series of posts dealing with progress on a day to day basis...

May 12 (A busy day so this is long!)

I had a meeting with the mason and architect today to review the progress of the chimney project. Before getting underway though I was up in the attic talking with the mason's son about the chimney and he pointed out several interesting non-chimney finds, including:

A single board with a beaded edge, miters at the end of the beads, whitewash on one side (excluding an area of ghost lines at each end), and hand wrought nails at each end nailed through from the unpainted side of the board. It was found, painted side up, wedged between two joists next to the chimney. Hmmm...this looks strangely familiar...here's a picture of it:

If it wasn't for the nailing pattern, I'd say it was a piece of baseboard. Instead, it appears to be one side of a four-sided box that was painted on the inside but not the outside. Could it instead be trim for my much anticipated, but unsubstantiated attic hatch (see my post of April 14)? Giddily, I took the piece over to the area where we had cut the attic hatch to allow access from the second floor bedchamber. I tried to fit the piece of trim between the two joists to see if my expectation of an 18th century hatch in this location was correct, and.........

It didn't fit. It wasn't even close. It was too long to fit between these joists. But that doesn't mean that its not trim for a hatch. It fit perfectly right back where it was originally found although it was not oriented as it would have been for a hatch. Also, that would put the hatch right above a winder staircase, which doesn't seem like a very good location for attic access.

We'll be removing a lot of blown in insulation and replacing it with new insulation. When we get all that old stuff out we'll get a good look at the joists, and maybe we'll find evidence of the hatch location. Fingers crossed.
What else did we find....

We found some shingles, still in place on a section of the kitchen wing roof that is now underneath the metal roof of the 1905 rear addition. The shingles are interesting in that the butt end of the shingle is beveled (like the current shingles on the Dutch House). They are also all circular sawn, so they are post-1850 or so. My guess is that these date to the 1870s when owner John Burnham added a new roof that gave his house a "decidedly newish appearance." And they were just covered up in 1905 when the addition was built. Here they are:

The shingles being in place are great because it tells us how much of each shingle was exposed. We checked up in the attic of the main block of the house, and guess what...we found more shingles that match the ones from the kitchen wing...some never used. The used ones are useful again, because its very obvious how much of the shingle was exposed to the weather.

So now we have a question...we are not planning on putting bevel cut shingles on the roof. Does or should this discovery change our plans about the type of shingle to use?

No, we don't think so. If we're correct that the date of the roof that these shingles were part of is the 1870s then there were probably at least two roofs on the building before it. What kind of shingles were they? Who knows. Also, the current shingles on the main block are not bevel-cut shingles. Since that roof is not being replaced at this time we are still going to use shingles that match it as planned. If someone else ever wants to put at 1870s wood roof on the Amstel House, or another house is New Castle, these shingles will be preserved in place and will be available for people to examine (though they'll need to crawl into a little corner of our attic to see them!)

Discovery number 3...the rafters and joists in the attic are all sawn with the exception of three hewn joists. That's not what I expected - I thought they would all be hand hewn since the place was built in the 1730s. One of the masons reminded me that their is a ghost line on the rear wall of the main block that may indicate that the roof structure on the kitchen wing was rebuilt at some point. There also seems to be alot of newer brick work just below the cornice and rakes of the kitchen wing that indicates something major changed.

Back to the attic of the main block. The timbers in the main block are also all sawn. Hmmm... The three hewn joists in the kitchen attic all have notches cut in them that are not used in the current structure. Hmmm....Could they have been reused timbers from another structure - maybe. What does this all mean? I don't know yet.

For now, here's a picture of the three hewn joists, and some sawn rafters above:

Discovery number 4 - whitewashed boards and wallpaper. In the construction of the 1905 additions roof structure a fair amount or lumber was reused. The reused boards have beaded edges and one of them yielded a sample of wallpaper - three different kinds: here's a scan of a large section of paper and a small swatch of another. Notice that on the big section that there are two layers of paper here with different patterns. Most people seem to like the yellow paper underneath. We haven't started trying to date the papers yet:

I think that's it for the major discoveries. We did actually manage to have a meeting (though we held it in the attic) to discuss moving forward. We spent a fair amount of time examining the chimney, its flues and voids and discussing treatment for the masonry. Here's our plan:

We need to fill the voids in the chimney to make it safe to use. If cracks develop in the flues and anything combustible (mice nests, shingles, etc) is in the void then the whole house can burn down. The historical society would like to use the kitchen fireplace in the future, and if the Society ever sells the Amstel House to a private owner, we want to be sure that the chimney is safe for them to use. Our plan is to fill the voids wih a lightweight, non-combustible mixture of cement and vermiculite - the mix is 50 lbs of cement to 20 lbs of vermiculite. That sounds like it's heavy on the cement, but by volume it is far more vermiculite.
We are going to trim the ceiling timbers back from the side of the chimney, and use a header to support them when necessary.
We are going to parge the exterior surface of the chimney (the surface that faces into the attic) for additional fire and smoke protection.
We are also going to parge the interior surface of the CMUs (cinder blocks) on the inside of the gable wall to help prevent moisture infiltration.
We also decided to bring in six total sheets of plywood while we have a big hole in the roof to lay down as a floor in the attic. This way we can move around the attic easily for maintenance, and can store some lightweight items up there as well.
But...before we do anything more with the chimney we want to invite someone from the University of Delaware's Center for Historic Architecture and Design to visit the Amstel House and examine our chimney. We also want to fully document the chimney with photography and measurements.

That's it for May 12...I'll continue with my belated updates later today or tomorrow.

Archaeology Symposium

2009-05-07T15:11:00.004-04:00

In addition to being historic preservation month, May is also archaeology month! And I almost forgot to put a plug in for the archaeology symposium that at the New Castle Court House on Saturday, May 9, from 9 am to 4 pm. The topic is "Early Colonial Period Archaeology of the Delaware Valley."

Specific lecture topics include:

Finding American Indian Sites of the Contact Period
Middle Atlantic Contact Period Archaeology as Colonial Discourse: Are There Alternatives?
What Can Late Woodland Ceramics of the Lower Delaware Valley Tell Us About Native American Ethnic Group Distributions During the Contact Period
How To Find Needles In A Haystack - Contemporary Accounts of Seventeenth Century Goods Traded on the Delaware
Wampum on the Fringe: Absence of a post-1610 Commodity in Delaware and Why.
Augustine Herrman, Lord of Bohemia Manor
Colonial Settlement in Coastal Delaware: Avery's Rest - A Case Study
The Real Buried Treasure in Marcus Hook: Update on Excavations at the Plank House
Strategic Planning for New Castle Community History & Archaeology Program: The Archaeology of Colonization and Beyond

It looks like a lot of great discussions - See you there on Saturday!

More Rain

2009-05-07T14:20:00.008-04:00

OK...I'm officially tired of rain.

And it looks like we're in for more rain through Saturday. It's slowed us down a little bit here, although the masons are on site today. They are working on parging the main flue. Parging is the process of coating a masonry surface with mortar. Here's an article that talks a little about parging, types of mortars and flue liners (http://www.ptvermont.org/homeowners/32chimneyflue.htm). The discussion of flue liners is good although it leaves out the important point that by installing a flue liner you are reducing the size of the flue. If your fireplace opening remains the same, you may cause the fireplace to smoke - meaning the smoke from your fire comes into your room instead of going up your chimney. So much for the enjoyment (cough!) of a cozy fire!

Parging the flue can be challenging even in a big old flue like ours. The masons need to work down from the top of the chimney to reach the narrowest part of the flue. Then to reach the center of the flue they need to climb up into the flue itself and work as best they can within that cramped space. Hopefully they can reach up to where they completed the parging from the top down. Here's a pic of the mason (or at least his legs) that drew the short straw for the job of climbing into the flue:

Here's what the newly parged flue looks like right now:

They will complete the job from the relative comfort of the fireplace opening tomorrow. The new parging will come down to the top of the historic plaster. The historic plaster will be left in place and left exposed. We are not planning to fill in missing areas of plaster that is visible in the fireplace opening.

They will also parge the flue for the second floor fireplace too. Even though there are no current plans to use the second floor fireplace, while the chimney is open we want to do as much as we can to improve the condition of the flue in case a decision is made to use it in the future. If that happens the rest of the flue can be easily parged from the top of the chimney down and from the fireplace up to complete the job.

In the meantime, I was planning to go get some more bricks today but that's not happening - I don't want to climb around on a pile of wet bricks to find the ones I need. I'm not coordinated enough to keep from falling on my head. So maybe when the rain stops...uh, how about Sunday? No - that's Mother's Day and I'll get in big trouble with Mom...Monday then.

Rain & The Secretary of the Interior

2009-05-04T15:26:00.005-04:00

It's been raining a lot lately so our construction activities have been limited. We do have two new new roofs (yes, two "new"s) that have corrected some issues with the first new roofs we added to our outbuildings (see my previous post), but that's about it.

Here's the new new roof at the Amstel House with shingles of narrower width and joints that do not repeat for at least three courses of shingles:

Here's the new hip joints on the Dutch House shed roof. I think the roofers did a nice job with these overlapping joints:

Just because it rained today doesn't mean that there's no historic preservation news in New Castle though.

This afternoon Senator Tom Carper arranged a town meeting in New Castle to discuss the national historical park proposed for Delaware. In addition to Senator Carper and Congressman Mike Castle, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and the Deputy Secretary Tom Strickland were both in attendance as well! It's not often that a member of the President's cabinet makes an appearance in New Castle so this was big!

The meeting was very positive with both the Secretary and Deputy Secretary pledging to champion the cause of establishing a national park in Delaware (the only state that does not have one). The audience in attendance (about 100 people) were all very positive about the park as well with public comments in support of the park proposal being voiced by the Mayor of New Castle, the Delaware State Historic Preservation Officer (Tim Slavin), and several others. The Secretary of the Interior also received a copy of the New Castle City Council's resolution in support of establishing a visitor service center in Historic New Castle. Not a single comment against the national park was voiced. Excellent!

If the park is established under the current proposal, the Historical Society will be partnering with the National Park Service to interpret New Castle's history. Secretary Salazar mentioned that the park format might resemble the model used in New Bedford, MA. Another possible model may be the Boston National Historical Park. Whatever form it finally takes, we're looking forward to working with the Park Service as a partner.

Hopefully, we'll return to our regularly scheduled construction discussions tomorrow.

Roofs, Bricks and More Bricks!

2009-04-28T15:09:00.008-04:00

On Friday the roofers completed work on the garden house at both the Amstel & Dutch Houses. There are a couple of items that need to be addressed on the new roofs, and they are returning tomorrow to take care of them:

1) On the Amstel Garden House, they used some shingles that are wider than 9.5". We are concerned that they may split as the shingle expands and contracts. If a split occurs below the joint in a course above or below it, it's possible that it may leak.

2) On the same building, they allowed joints between shingles to repeat after just two courses instead of three - which is preferred for wood roofs.

3) On the Dutch House garden house, which has a hip roof, they did not match the overlap detail at the ridges on the hips. the shingles should overlap in an alternating pattern. Instead they mitered them and butted them against each other allowing two joints directly above each other - another possibility for leaking.

4) The shingles are uneven where they meet at the northwest ridge.

5) A few shingles split or were not wide enough to complete the miter joint at the ridges.

Here's a pic of one of the hips that needs to be addressed:

In chimney & fireplace news...

On Friday we met with our mason, architect and general contractor to discuss how to proceed with the fireplace and chimney restoration. We discussed plans to keep the fireplace in its original configuration with as little restoration as possible. I think we'll be keeping the original plaster in place and will not use new plaster to fill in areas of missing plaster. We'll also rebuild the chimney as it was originally - voids and all. Finally, we will rebuild the squirrel-tail bake oven some time in the future - under a different project (time to write some grant apps!).

We also talked about ways to make bricks for the hearth ourselves. We'll be digging a big hole in the Amstel House yard about mid-June for a dry-well. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the hole will yield some good clay that can be used to make bricks. Our mason suggested getting our members and the public involved in a brick-making workshop. Then we may explore having our handmade bricks fired at Colonial Williamsburg or - in the ultimate historic brick-making fantasy - build our own kiln here in town and do them ourselves in an authentic 18th century manner. Since the brick-making process will take some time, we'll keep the existing hearth as is and fill in around it with additional bricks temporarily. Sounds like a cool project in whatever guise it eventually takes!

Today, I went brick-picking and brought back 89 more historic bricks - that brings our salvaged total to 389! Unfortunately, my brick picking skills leave a little to be desired so the masons may reject alot of what I've recovered so far (I'm hoping for only a 30% reject rate - we'll see!).

I also set up a display in the kitchen to show how bricks are molded and differences in bricks used for paving hearths. Here's a pic:

I think that's about it for today. I let you know how the roof goes tomorrow (hopefully it won't rain).

New Roofs and Beer!

2009-04-23T16:34:00.010-04:00

Today our roofers arrived on site to begin roofing work on the garden house on the Amstel property and tomorrow they will roof the Dutch House garden shed. About a week and a half ago, some carpentry work was completed to replace some fascia boards that had rotted on both outbuildings. An access hatch was also cut in the ceiling of the Amstel Garden House to allow a way into the surprisingly roomy attic. The hatch was cut through the ceiling boards from above and the saw kerfs are directly above the ceiling beams so from below you can't tell there is a hatch there! It's great! Here's a pic of the attic:
The roofers spent pretty much the whole day on the garden house. The rear roof was already removed, and they made short work of removing the front roof. All the shingle lath was left in place.

We asked them to hand nail all the cedar shingles so the process may have moved more slowly than a modern job. They installed cedar shingle referred to as '24" Royals'. They are 2 feet in length. Both sides are sawn which we think matches the appearance of 18th century shingles better than modern shakes - which have a primitive split look to them. (While its true that shingles were hand-split in the 18th century, their surfaces were also smoothed or "dressed" with a drawknife. So they looked more like today's shingles than shakes.)

The roofing crew is just finishing up for the day as I write this. They need to do a bit or work around the chimney in the morning then they will move on to the Dutch House. The dumpster did not arrive today so the old roofing debris will remain on site overnight so we'll be closing the garden to visitors this evening.

On a related note...one of our guides, Martha, told me a great story today that she heard from a descendant of Mrs. T. Coleman du Pont. Mrs. du Pont was instrumental in building the Amstel garden house back in the 1930s. It was made out of salvaged materials - bricks from an old house on the Atlas Powder Company property and timbers from the Pocopson Bridge (in PA I think)- to make it look old. So when a new wood roof was installed, the nice new shingles just didn't fit with the look Mrs. du Pont was after. Someone apparently advised her that if she poured beer all over the shingles it would artificially age them. So she and her son came to the Amstel House one morning and proceeded to pour beer all over the roof. In the process, Mrs. du Pont got pretty well drenched by the brew. She arrived home around noon - probably smelling like a brewery - to find a group of guests waiting for her that she had forgotten that she invited to lunch. Imagine their surprise!

So...While I don't intend to pour beer all over the new roof - since tomorrow is Friday - I think I may just have to crack a cold one and raise a toast to Mrs. du Pont and her dedication to getting everything just right!

Cheers!

Research!

2009-04-21T08:51:00.013-04:00

So now that we have a bunch of questions, it's time to start looking for some answers. Yesterday, I began digging through some of our own archives here at the Historical Society, and found some photos and descriptions that help clarify things a bit...

In a 1938 address to the Garden Club of Wilmington, Mrs. Caleb Layton describes the reconstruction of the bake oven at the Amstel House (below). Based on her chronology leading up to the following excerpt, it sound like the bake oven was reconstructed just prior to May 1938.

"Originally Amstel House had a Dutch oven which extended from the kitchen wall into a space paved with cobbles. We decided to attempt to reconstruct the oven while the expert bricklayer was at hand sent by Mr. [Charles] Gillette from Williamsburg. The oven is not very large, but it has one feature that is not often found. Instead of an iron dorr [sic], it has a small brick shelf upon which a heavy oak cover is supported. The opening is not into the room, but over the hearth, inside the chimney breast itself, the space for the fire being slightly to the left. There is no connection between the oven and the chimney, and no chute for ashes. Apparently embers were taken from the fire and banked in the oven. Later when the oven was hot, they were raked back, and the heat was kept in by the thickness of the plank cover. Since Mr. Gillette was not accustomed to ovens [Gillette was a landscape architect from Richmond, VA.], we took the findings to Mr. [Erling] Pederson, who is the expert in charge of restoration for the Pennsylvania Museum [Philadelphia Museum of Art]. He made a sketch with proper dimensions for oven and dome, and thus the oven was restored."

Bake oven just after reconstruction, c. 1938:This above passage confirmed for us the date of the reconstructed bake oven - about 1938. From Mrs. Layton's description it sounds as if the reconstruction was a relatively unplanned decision, but in fact Gillette's landscape plans from 1932, 6 years earlier, show the bake oven in its current location. Another thing Mr. Layton's decription tells us is that the 1930s restorers did not know that the squirrel tail flue existed ("There is no connection between the oven and the chimney..."). This is confirmed in the reminiscences of Bruce Gordon, a local contractor that worked on the Amstel House frequently between 1932 and 1968. Gordon remembers that he "opened the fireplace also. Fireplace appeared sound but wasn't opened all the was because of possible draft. Found beehive oven but did not work on it." So Gordon states that the earlier restorers did not go as far as we have by removing masonry added after the fireplace's original contruction date. They left the squirrel tail flue covered by masonry added at some earlier time.

Gordon also mentions that a "timber was taken from barn at 6th and New Castle [does he mean Delaware St?] for mantel (1930)." This confirms for us that the roughly hewn timber that was spiked to the lintel was definitely added during the 1930s restoration process. It reflects the colonial revival ideal of what a colonial kitchen fireplace should look like, i.e. pewter plates on the mantel and musket on the wall above.

Gordon's memories of working on the house also tell us that the fireplace was closed in prior to the 1930s and that the opening was narrowed at some earlier date. It also indicates that they were aware that enlarging the opening might throw off the ratio between flue size and opening size and result in problems with the fireplace drafting correctly. My guess is that the chimney had already been reconstructed from the roof up. The reconstructed chimney, as noted in an earlier post, included a kitchen flue that was reduced from its 18th century size.

The chimney was probably reconstructed in 1905, when the owner of the Amstel House, Henry Hanby Hay, was making other alterations to the house. At that time, he added a second floor alcove that projected out of the back of the house next to the chimney. Probably at that time, the gable of the house was substantially rebuilt. When we opened the attic to gain access to the chimney for this project, we discovered that the inside of the gable wall was made of concrete block (with a brick veneer on the outside). This alcove was removed in the 1990s due to structural problems (see below):

As I'm writing this I realize that another thing that we discovered when we opened the attic is that the roof rafters are sawn timbers rather than hewn timbers. The beams in the attic floor, however are all hewn as expected. Was the roof rebuilt in 1905? Or sometime earlier? I'm supposed to be finding answers not developing more questions!

More on what kind of information the archives are producing tomorrow.

More Discoveries, More Questions

2009-04-19T19:10:00.015-04:00

The last two days of the week, the masons spent their time dismantling the chimney to below roof level. They discovered that the interior of the chimney (the flue) was lined with clinker bricks. Clinker bricks are bricks that did not fire correctly in the kiln. They are often harder than normal bricks and often distorted in shape. Hence, their use inside the chimney where they would never be seen. Interestingly, clinkers became popular around the beginning of the 20th century when the Arts & Crafts movement was popular (Click here for an article on clinkers). They also noted that the mortar used between these bricks seems to be clay and sand. There doesn't appear to be any pieces of lime in the mortar. Needless to say, it's turning to dust.

Another discovery was the that the chimney contains a void between the kitchen flue and the flue for the corner fireplace on the second floor. This took our masons by surprise since most chimneys are solid throughout except where the flues are. Why did the original builders leave the chimneys essentially hollow inside? Was it to save material and labor costs? Or could it be a regional method of construction? I'm not sure. When taken in conjunction with the random masonry pattern (half bricks, header courses on top of header courses) used on the walls of the kitchen wing itself - which defies categorization into any of the well-known brick bond patterns - I'm beginning to think that the builder was pinching pennies (not a fact, just a theory).

The masons also discovered that during a previous rebuild of the chimney, the flue at the very top of the chimney was reduced in size (to the same size as the 2nd floor fireplace). Did this cause the fireplace to smoke or was this done at the same time the fireplace was reduced in size so did not result in a smoking issue? I need to dig through some of our archival material to look for details about the restoration work that was done in the early 20th century. Here's a photo taken after the 20th century chimney was dismantled showing the original size of the two flues (the kitchen flue is on the right):

Finally, they examined the 2nd floor fireplace and its construction is essentially the same (in smaller scale) as the kitchen fireplace below it. It was also plastered and the plaster is intact. A new firebox with firebrick was built in front of the original firebox when a damper was added, sometime in the 20th century perhaps. The masons asked about removing the modern firebrick to expose the original firebox. Since this bedchamber is not interpreted to the public (it's actually used for our office), I doubt that we will remove the firebrick at this time. We'll probably save that for a future project.

While the masons worked on the chimney, I sifted through piles of old brick looking for suitable bricks that might be used in our project. I spent about 3 hours looking for bricks. Here are some of my finds:

We also examined the hearths of the other fireplace in the house. We discovered that two bedroom fireplaces and the fireplace in the best parlor use two courses of 6" x 6" square hearth bricks at the front of the hearth and the typical rectangular bricks toward the back of the hearth. This use of square pavers elsewhere in the house and the fragment we found in the kitchen fireplace lend support to a decision to use 6" x 6" bricks for the kitchen hearth. Now to figure out where to get them...

The masons probably won't be back until Friday to give us some time to try to answer some questions and decide how to proceed with the restoration.

I'm hoping this week we can open the house in the evening to invite New Castle Historical Society members in to view the hearth in its raw, un-restored state. More on that later this week.

There's Nothing Like The Sound Of Jackhammers In The Morning!

2009-04-15T08:40:00.026-04:00

It rained yesterday in New Castle so the masons moved inside to work on the kitchen fireplace. The plan was to remove the "new" masonry to get back to the fireplace's original size and configuration. They warned me it might get noisy since they would be using a small jackhammer (my office is directly above the kitchen fireplace!) I closed the door and, being Irish, cranked up Radiocelt.

Here's what the fireplace looked like before work began yesterday:

At some point in the fireplace's history the opening of the fireplace was reduced in size. About 1.5 feet of masonry was added to the inside of the left leg and about 6 inches to the right. Additional masonry was added to the back wall of the fireplace, and more masonry was added behind and above the lintel. Our primary question about this added masonry was why was it added? Was it a structural issue? Did the fireplace smoke too much? Another question - what kind of condition was the lintel in?

A couple of other questions too:

Is the crane original to the fireplace? We believe it was placed in its current location in the early 20th century because it impractically swings in front of the bake oven opening. We hoped to find original pintles in place that would match our existing crane, and confirm or deny its originality to the house.
Is the bake oven original? We believed that the opening was indeed original though the oven outside appeared to be a 20th century reconstruction - it is severely undersized.

I resisted going downstairs until lunch and the masons informed me that the original masonry looked remarkably well-preserved. I was expecting our architect and lead mason to arrive around 1 pm so I continued to exercise restraint and didn't look under the plastic yet. I wanted to wait for the great unveiling later!

Once everyone arrived I got my first look at the recently uncovered fireplace:

It was very exciting to see the original fireplace with several features that we did not know about:

A flue opening directly above the bake oven opening revealed that the original bake oven was a "squirrel tail" design. In this design smoke from inside the oven exited through an opening at the rear of the dome, traveled through a flue that ran along the exterior (top) of the dome (like a squirrel with its tail pulled up over its back) and re-entered the fireplace smoke chamber above the oven door to vent into the smoke chamber then up the chimney (below).

The inside corners on each leg of the fireplace were rounded and the interior of the fireplace was plastered. A large portion of the original plaster remains solidly in place (below).

No pintles were discovered in the original masonry. There are no other indications of a wall-mounted crane ever being used in the original configuration. There are two iron rods running front to back inside the smoke chamber (below). Did these suspend a lug pole (an iron rod or timber that ran parallel to the lintel, spanning the cooking space below)? Pots could be suspended on trammels hung from this lug pole during cooking. Or was a floor standing crane used and these iron rods are actually tie rods to stabilize the chimney?

A fragment of a hearth paver that appears to be square and thinner than the brick pavers that were put in place when the fireplace was narrowed (The triangular fragment is just below the yellow cord in the photo below). Other fireplaces in the house use 6" by 6" pavers for the hearth.

The lower section of the rear wall in the firebox shows no sign of soot.

Good news too...the lintel appears to be in very good condition and doesn't show any obvious structural deficiency that would have prompted the addition of masonry below it. Perhaps the fireplace opening was reduced to alleviate an issue with the fireplace smoking (more on that in a sec...)

All of this poses more questions for us to consider: Should we rebuild the exterior portion of the bake oven to its original squirrel tail configuration? Can we find the oven's foundation through archaeological investigation? Should we lay the restored hearth with 6" by 6" pavers based on the fragment we found and the other fireplaces in the house? Where will we get them - can we have them made using local clay? Where was the clay dug in the 18th century? Is the flue correctly sized for the fireplace opening?

If the fireplace was reduced in size to solve a smoking problem are we going to have a smoking problem if the fireplace is ever used in the future? How do we solve that? If we enlarge the flue then the chimney's exterior appearance will be too big. Is there a way to improve the draft using a fan at the top of the chimney? How well does that work - it is visible from outside or audible inside?

Of course, as we are proceeding we are removing the work of previous owners and restorers of the building which reflect the building's history and evolution. We already came to the philosophical conclusion to restore the fireplace to its original appearance. How far does that philosophy carry into the rest of the room? Or the rest of the house?

And the questions go on and on. Some of these questions will be resolved in the short term by our project budget, but many have far reaching implications for the interpretation of the house as a museum. As we wrestle with these and other questions, I'll keep you posted on what we decide to do and why.

I've always said that every day is an adventure when you work at a historic site and today's adventure did not disappoint!

Fireplace, Hearth & Chimney Restoration Begins

2009-04-14T12:59:00.014-04:00

Our first major project at the Amstel House is the restoration of the kitchen fireplace, hearth, and chimney. We are restoring the fireplace to its original size and configuration, c. 1738. The project is expected to take about 5 weeks to complete.

On-site work began last week. Carpenters arrived Thursday to cut an access hatch in the ceiling of a second floor bedchamber (our current office) so the masons can get into the attic above to work on the chimney. Conveniently there was an obvious area in the corner of the ceiling that was patched with plaster, and the plaster had cracked in a right-angle pattern suggesting a previous access hatch. We hoped if we opened the same area that we would see evidence in the framing of an original hatch. So, with fingers crossed the carpenters opened the hatch...

...and found no framing - darn! It was apparent that someone had previously cut through the ceiling in that area since the original lath was cut back below a large timber, and the lath used in the patch was sawn rather than hand-split.

After consulting with our architect we decided to move ahead with our original plans to finish the opening permanently with a jamb, trim and panel so we will always have easy access into the attic for storage, maintenance and to trap the occasional squirrel or raccoon (if you live in New Castle you understand this!). We'll finish the plaster around it and paint it after the chimney is finished. Here a detail shot of the trim and door: On Monday the masons arrived for their first full day on work. Scaffolding was set up at the rear of the kitchen wing, taking a good portion of the day. The investigated the chimney as well as the condition of the other two chimneys and took some very valuable photos of the other chimney, flues, and roofs. As you might guess the photos reveal that additional work is needed (ugh!). But more on that later...Toward the end of the day the began deconstruction of the kitchen chimney. Meanwhile, I spent about two hours trying to pick appropriate bricks out of a huge pile of (mostly) 18th century bricks from a nearby house that was torn down (the owner was gracious enough to donate bricks for our project). For a novice like me, picking appropriate bricks is tougher that I thought. When I brought my first cache of bricks back to our site, the masons reviewed them and gave me some additional insight into picking good bricks. So when the weather clears up I'll go back to try again.

That pretty much wraps up the first couple of days from my perspective!

Welcome to Preserving New Castle's Heritage!

2009-04-14T10:51:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the New Castle Historical Society's new historic preservation blog! I'll be using this blog to keep you up-to-date with preservation activities, issues, and projects happening in and around Historic New Castle, Delaware.

The idea for a blog developed last year as the New Castle Historical Society (NCHS) planned some major preservation projects on our historic properties - the Amstel House & the Dutch House. The posts on our original blog (on www.newcastlehistory.org) slowed down due to some delays in getting our projects started. Now that we are underway, I will use this blog to keep you informed about progress on our projects, our decision making process, treatment options and choices that we make. I hope you will find information that is useful in your own preservation projects.