AS A FOLLOW-UP to my having noted in October the maintenance need HERE, I am pleased to record that our Director of Operations has arranged to have this wall painted, as part of a larger project in November.
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The quick turnaround is heartening. (Sometimes things do come together nicely!)
Below the jump, this short post documents the wall’s current condition via photos. They are meant to be compared directly with those in the previous post.
THIS PROJECT was completed last month. It features several historically significant components of our sanctuary building’s façade. Therefore this post follows a report template in the 2003 Historic Structure Report, as recommended for all historic-cultural monuments.
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Below the jump, this post restates the basic need and documents the work done. For more background, see HERE.…
LAST PAINTED IN 2007, which was 17 years ago, the west wall of our school building is in need of a little lovin’. In retrospect, it should have been repainted a decade ago.
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This wall has been neglected because almost nobody except the staff ever sees it. Meanwhile, the afternoon sun and sea breezes have taken their toll.
Below the jump, this short post documents the wall’s current condition, with three annotated photos.
THE TITLE of this post is a sincere question that is being posed to our waterproofing contractor, Cameron Figgins of Absolute Maintenance & Consulting. My focus here is on the concrete stem wall (also known as the foundation wall), which juts out along the bottom of the overall exterior wall.
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| Why does the section on the right of the pilaster look so different from the one on the left? (As usual, click/tap on an image to enlarge it.) |
My concern is not aesthetics but rather that the rightmost section seems less well protected from future water intrusion.
I’ve been wanting to pose that title question in person since mid-August, but I haven’t succeeded in meeting up with Cameron on site. So last week, I asked him via email. He promptly replied:
Please send me something from a few different angles.… I'm really interested to see what you're talking about here, see what you might mean.
In response, I am uploading photos to this post. Below the jump break, I document how the easternmost section of our wall looks markedly different from the other sections.
THE BASIC PLAN for restoring the sanctuary building’s façade and eliminating water intrusion is outlined in this post. (The condition of the walls is documented in photographs HERE.)
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AFTER I ASKED our waterproofing contractor for guidance regarding proper maintenance for the newly waterproofed south wall (completion expected tomorrow), I received the following response on October 24.
THE SANCTUARY BUILDING façade on Main Street is due for restoration, given the longstanding water intrusion in the hallway. The same kind of problems that we found at the south wall are increasingly evident. They seem to be the result of two of the 1948 construction methods — namely, the lack of a weep screed and of a waterproof coating for the above-ground portion of the concrete foundation.
We know basically what needs to be done. Now it’s a matter of gathering the necessary funds, completing a contract, and arranging the logistics of the restoration work.
Below the jump, this post documents the present condition of the walls, via photographs. (As usual, click/tap on an image to enlarge it.)
From the Technical Data Sheet and the Application and Maintenance Guide for Dow Corning AllGuard Silicone Elastomeric Coating…
ON JUNE 12, we learned that the wooden post inside our most weather-exposed pilaster is thoroughly infested with termites, resulting in significant damage. This is the same post that we have already treated twice in its bottom 2 feet for termites, both from the inside and the outside. But now we know that they have been active almost all the way to the top, at least on the outside.
Jim Farasatpour, an experienced structural engineer, has examined the outside, and he believes that this post can be repaired for about $5000. (There is a small chance that it might need to be replaced, but we won’t know for sure until we actually set about to make the repair.) We believe that this repair effort can be made concurrently with the waterproofing project. It is essential, due to the post’s structural importance.
As a safety issue, our synagogue leadership considers this repair effort to be a high priority.
Below the jump, this post outlines what that repair effort will involve.…
VERTICAL CRACKING in the stucco of our pilasters might be merely a rupture in the stucco itself—without having compromised the tar paper (vapor barrier) behind the stucco. On the other hand, as a structural engineer told me today, it could be the opening for a serious structural issue to have developed: dry rot in the post, due to persistent moisture intrusion.
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It’s like when a car’s owner finds that one of its tires looks almost flat. Can that tire be patched—or does it need to be replaced? Well, it needs further inspection. Similarly in our case, the best way to find out what we are dealing with is: chip open a couple of the cracks, to see how deep they go.
Below the jump, this post looks more closely at the newly noticed cracks, and our options.…
WE ARE GETTING CLOSE to applying new surface finishes to our sanctuary’s outer south wall, and to our main sanctuary hall. Which leads to a question: What should their surface colors be?
UNTIL THE WALL is waterproofed, water damage will continue whenever it rains. And it will get worse over time, as the wall continues to degrade.
This post documents a couple of temporary measures that I have been taking to protect the interior of our sanctuary building.
I’m proceeding according to the “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” principle. (The down side is that these measures reduced my availability for other B&G responsibilities.)
THIS POST documents the condition of the newly exposed pilaster bases, on the south wall of the sanctuary. I provisionally interpret the findings as evidence of damage due to longstanding water intrusion — but not threatening the stability of the building itself. The structural engineer seems to agree with this assessment, but I believe he is withholding final judgment until he makes an on-site visit.
Here is a map of the south wall, showing which 3 of the 7 pilasters are involved. The labels “1st,” “2nd,” and “3rd” refer to the order in which the structural engineer and I have attended to them, rather than their position on the wall.
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Below the jump, I recap the uncovering process, and then show a set of photos for each base.…
TODAY I MET outside the south wall with Brian James, who works for a stucco repair contractor. He has 17 years of experience in dealing with aging and decrepit stucco surfaces in the L.A. area. While awaiting his bid for restoration, I will write up what I learned from our conversation.…
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LAST NIGHT, the board of directors approved an enabling resolution stating that two related B&G projects should be undertaken as reserve funds become available.
Expenditures of up to a certain stated amount* were authorized, provided that the usual procurement procedures are followed. Due to the uncertain nature of working on poorly maintained older buildings, an allowance for contingency was included.
Already the funds equal to the authorized amount are either in the Capital Improvements Fund, or verbally committed by donors specifically for these projects.
So the ball is now back in the court of the B&G Committee, for the execution of these projects.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER a heavy rain, the stucco wall looks quite different than usual. Apparently the many places where moisture enters the stucco become easy to see. Those are the darker (wet) spots and lines that stand out against the lighter (drier) areas.
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| (As usual, click/tap on a photo to enlarge it.) |
In other words, the dark patches are where the surface is readily admitting moisture into the wall.
Below the jump, this post documents the water-intrusion situation in a new way.…
THIS POST provides clear evidence that water is getting through the wall from outside, and that the stem wall is getting overly wet in even more places that have structural implications.
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| December 1st — baseline for comparison (As usual, click/tap on a photo to enlarge it.) |
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| December 1st — exposed base of post — baseline for comparison |
A PILASTER IS “an upright architectural member that is rectangular in plan and… usually projects one third of its width or less from the wall, and that may be load-bearing” (Merriam-Webster’s). I.e., it’s a rectangular pillar or post that sticks out from a wall.
Our sanctuary’s south wall has 7 load-bearing pilasters. And in July I learned that the base of one of them was visibly damaged, as described HERE and HERE. Because of the structural importance of the pilaster, this damage is turning out to be a significant problem.
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| Damaged base of pilaster, as seen in July (As usual, click/tap on a photo to enlarge it.) |
This blog post discusses the challenges involved in repairing this pilaster base.
ON THREE OCCASIONS during the past two decades, structural engineers have recommended that we do test cuts into the south wall of our sanctuary. The goal: to enable more reliable cost estimates for waterproofing and possible structural repair work, hopefully later this year. Given more than two decades of known water intrusion and termite activity in that area, the engineers were concerned that there might be significant structural damage in the wall. They told us that there was only one way to find out: to look beneath the plaster surface.
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| Prep work, as viewed from bimah: Marking the locations, and placing air purifiers to catch plaster dust. (As usual, click/tap on a photo to enlarge it.) |
This past week, we finally undertook that adventure in discovery. Although the board had approved this work in May 2021, it took until now to arrange for the proper alignment of funding and expertise. Careful planning (described HERE) was needed to ensure that we would get useful and reliable answers to our questions, given our limited budget.
This post reports on what was done, and the initial findings.
MAKING TEST CUTS into the south wall will be an adventure in discovery. (Best case: we find that the wall’s structural integrity is in good shape. Worst case: we find that there’s significant structural damage due to water damage, dry rot, termites; and maybe there’s mold, as well.) The point of this exercise is to be able to develop reliable cost estimates for structural repair and waterproofing later this year.
There are many issues to consider in advance, in order to ensure that we get useful and reliable answers to our questions. To me, the pending discovery stage feels a bit like sending an unmanned mission to Mars—we’ve got to get it right long before the probe lands on the unexplored surface of interest.
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| An American probe sent to Mars |
Below the jump, this post discusses the various considerations.…