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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...
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...
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!
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.
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!
