SOME TESTING FOR ASBESTOS has been done at Mishkon over the years. (Some abatement work has also been done.)
This post now documents what I have learned from testing reports, our office computer records, and our inspector. It also gives some background information.…
THIS IS A report on the tenting and fumigation project that took place during the last week of December (2025).
Below the jump, this post discusses three main aspects: the biggest challenges, what went well, and room for improvement.
MORE THAN 7 HOURS were needed for a 6-man crew to erect and seal up the tent that enveloped Mishkon’s premises on Monday, December 29.
Four years ago, we had been told that it was not even possible to tent our facility unless our neighbor’s attached building were tented, as well. Yet after the fumigation company’s rep made several site visits and gave much thought to the matter, he came up with a plan to wrap Mishkon’s buildings while minimally involving our neighbor’s. This year, both our board and our neighbor assented to the plan.
Below the jump, you can enjoy 8 varied views of the enormous completed tent.…
WE ARE ALMOST READY for the tenting and fumigation of our premises at the very end of this month.
Although this was discussed and previously approved by the board in 2022, it turned out not to be feasible at the time. Many interlocking pieces needed to fall into place, but a few of them did not do so then. Same thing in 2024. However, this time around, it just might work—given the cooperation of our neighbors, the promised participation of many volunteers, and the preparations by our staff that I have already seen.
Below the jump, this post offers an FAQ about what is happening.…
IN FEBRUARY 2023, I described the sanctuary’s HVAC system in this post. Just recently, I have revised three aspects of my earlier understanding. The newer picture looks like this:
Below the jump, this post describes and documents the salient results of what I learned from my recent explorations.…
DURING THIS SUMMER, it will be time to do major work on the roof of our historic sanctuary. Mishkon has saved up the funds to pay for this two-part project, and we have been preparing to carry it out.
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| A silicone “cool roof” recovering is applied in Torrance. |
STARTING A NEW fiscal year, with some new officers and directors, let us take stock of where we stand. From this vantage point, our recent accomplishments and imminent projects are taken as givens. What matters most are the challenges that we have yet to address.
The focus in this post is not on making improvements per se, but more simply on attending to what we currently have, beyond routine maintenance. I further restrict my focus here to items that are not obvious. (Which excludes repairing the flood damage in the basement.) This gives us our baseline for moving forward beyond this summer’s projects.
Below the jump, this post sums up the needs of our facilities major areas of concern. The list is not exhaustive. What is listed here alone will cost more than $180K. Most of the expenditures have been discussed by, and authorized by, the board of directors.
DURING THE ANNUAL termite inspection on August 30, 2022, our inspector came across a crawl space below the southeast exit corridor (connecting the sanctuary with the play yard) and above the ceiling of the mechanical rooms in the corner of the Social Hall. He spied a badly damaged floor joist, as shown in the photo below — and described at the end of a post I made at the time.
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| (As usual, click/tap on an image to enlarge it.) |
We promptly treated it so as to arrest its deterioration. However, we were unable to see or reach its easternmost end (as would be needed in order to replace the joist), due to the presence of a large metal duct that was blocking access.
Yesterday, Ruben and I figured out another way to get to that previously inaccessible corner of our building. Below the jump, this post describes what we did, and what we found.…
HERE IS A SERIES of interior photos of the area above the termite-damaged post, at the tie-rod connection that was exposed in August 2023. Studying these images helped Benny and me (in consultation with the contractor) figure out how best to effect a repair of the post.
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| Exterior view of the tie-rod connection, above the post (As usual, click/tap on an image in order to enlarge it.) |
A crucial step was to establish the structural integrity of this tie-rod connection — that is, the meeting point of the rod that crosses the ceiling and the top chord (arch) of the truss that holds up the roof. We were counting on that meeting point to be stable (undamaged by termites), so that the contractor could temporarily support the roof by propping up the tie rod, just long enough to swap out the post for a new one.
Fortunately, as shown by the photos below the jump, the termites did not get into the tie-rod connection itself.
…challenges of all — out of the 10 essential roof-supporting posts that sit inside our sanctuary’s walls — appears to be the easternmost one on the south side. That’s not surprising, given that for nearly 75 years it has been sitting inside the pilaster that is the most weather-exposed, and at the edge of a sun-baked, asphalt-covered parking lot.
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| July 13 (As usual, click/tap on an image to enlarge it.) |
Below the jump, this blog post recounts our cautious, step-by-step process to understanding what needs to be done — and eventually what it will cost.
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.…
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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| (As usual, click/tap on an image to enlarge it.) |
Below the jump, I recap the uncovering process, and then show a set of photos for each base.…
ABOVE THE MEZZANINE ceiling is a large void that, until last week, was inaccessible to human beings — but accessible to termites.
(Previously termites had been spotted through a ceiling hole in the southwest corner of this space, and also in its northeast corner through a roof hole, so the likelihood seemed very high that they were established also in the void between.)
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| Back (western) wall of the sanctuary. (As usual, click/tap on an image to enlarge it.) |
This post describes how we created access for humans — who observed not only the purported termite infestations within, but also the structural damage that they have caused.…
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.…
ON THE EXTERIOR of the sanctuary building, along the south and north walls, the tie rods appear to be supported by pillars that jut out from the wall. What are these pillars made of, and what is their condition? Here is an initial answer.
TWO SPECIAL PROJECTS WERE COMPLETED this month on our sanctuary building: the upper side chambers project, and the perimeter walls project. Both involved treating for termites in normally inaccessible locations.
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| Looking eastward in an upper side chamber (click or tap to enlarge) |
WITHIN THE SPACE OF sixteen days, Mishkon has received its annual maintenance both for the roof and for termite infestation. The fact that both of these have now been undertaken 2 years in a row is noteworthy, for it seems to be historic. To my knowledge, it is unprecedented.
| Star = ground-level spot where termites were found and treated this month (click or tap to enlarge diagram) |
In these two key areas of concern, we may be moving from only crisis management to ongoing facilities management. While annual roof and termite maintenance can’t quite yet be considered a “routine” part of what we do at Mishkon, this single repetition feels to me like a big achievement in itself. This post explains why.…
WITHIN THE SPACE OF sixteen days, Mishkon has received its annual maintenance both for the roof and for termite infestation. The fact that both of these have now been undertaken 2 years in a row is noteworthy, for it seems to be historic. To my knowledge, it is unprecedented.
In these two key areas of concern, we may be moving from only crisis management to ongoing facilities management. While annual roof and termite maintenance can’t quite yet be considered a “routine” part of what we do at Mishkon, this single repetition feels to me like a big achievement in itself. This post explains why.…
HOW MANY HOLES does it take to fill the Albert Hall? I honestly don’t know—ask Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band! 😉 But I do know roughly how many holes it takes to perform a perimeter termite treatment on the long walls of our sanctuary hall.
Namely, more than 250! That’s the number of holes that were drilled and filled this week in our sanctuary. And that was for the upper half of those walls only.
Below the jump, this post explains the why, how, and what of the treatment. Of course, with accompanying photos (courtesy of Ruben Carrillo).…
