History Taskforce Discovers Serious Problem and Scrambles to fix it
The History Taskforce completed long-needed repairs to the metal roof of the building last month. Since then we have been scrambling to solve the serious problem we discovered when we started taking the siding off the bottom of the bell tower at Thomas Chapel. When working with historic Landmark buildings like this one, which is 125 years old, you never know what you will find when you start looking underneath the surface. As we removed the siding last week, we discovered that all three of the columns that hold the bell tower up were seriously rotted because of water damage from the leaking roof!
We were fortunate to be doing this work now, as you will see from the photos. The water damage from the leaky roof had continued for 20 years after the building was examined by the Texas Historical Commission in Austin in 2004 when the church requested a grant to repair it. The grant was never given because the church could not raise $24,000 in matching funds. The Taskforce reapplied for a grant for this purpose this year, but received no assistance. We felt we could not continue to wait for funding. This delay had allowed the condition of the support columns to become critical and endanger the integrity of the structure. Once we discovered this problem, we immediately called Ron Saikowski of Quest Engineering who began designing new structural replacements for the column supports.
The original column supports were 8” X 8” pine beams each one forty feet long, going in one piece from the concrete pier it sat on to the top of the bell tower. Replacing that size of lumber today would be nearly impossible – or at least very costly and hard to find. Of course, in the days when that building was built, the great forests of white pine covered East Texas and there were numerous sawmills in the area that could have cut those timbers. Today, however, Saikowski designed bundles of 2” X 12” treated timbers using a framing technique and bound together for strength with metal strips to replace the rotten timbers. Special nails and bindings were used. For several days the Gulf Storms construction workers braced up the building to prevent it from collapsing while the old timbers were removed and replaced by the newly designed supports.
That work was completed, inspected, and approved on Friday, February 23. At that point, the Taskforce began to breathe again. This problem could not be seen until we took the siding off. It was an expensive repair but because it couldn’t be seen, we could have been close to losing this building. We can now move on to finish replacing the siding. That job should be complete by March 1.
You will understand when you see the photos.
We were fortunate to be doing this work now, as you will see from the photos. The water damage from the leaky roof had continued for 20 years after the building was examined by the Texas Historical Commission in Austin in 2004 when the church requested a grant to repair it. The grant was never given because the church could not raise $24,000 in matching funds. The Taskforce reapplied for a grant for this purpose this year, but received no assistance. We felt we could not continue to wait for funding. This delay had allowed the condition of the support columns to become critical and endanger the integrity of the structure. Once we discovered this problem, we immediately called Ron Saikowski of Quest Engineering who began designing new structural replacements for the column supports.
The original column supports were 8” X 8” pine beams each one forty feet long, going in one piece from the concrete pier it sat on to the top of the bell tower. Replacing that size of lumber today would be nearly impossible – or at least very costly and hard to find. Of course, in the days when that building was built, the great forests of white pine covered East Texas and there were numerous sawmills in the area that could have cut those timbers. Today, however, Saikowski designed bundles of 2” X 12” treated timbers using a framing technique and bound together for strength with metal strips to replace the rotten timbers. Special nails and bindings were used. For several days the Gulf Storms construction workers braced up the building to prevent it from collapsing while the old timbers were removed and replaced by the newly designed supports.
That work was completed, inspected, and approved on Friday, February 23. At that point, the Taskforce began to breathe again. This problem could not be seen until we took the siding off. It was an expensive repair but because it couldn’t be seen, we could have been close to losing this building. We can now move on to finish replacing the siding. That job should be complete by March 1.
You will understand when you see the photos.
