Masonry Magazine August 2007 Page. 22
Restoration
"I use a masonry stain from Sherwin-Williams tinted close-
ly to samples 1 submit, and then I customize them with tints to
fine tune the final stain to match the actual job," Oatman said.
"It is time consuming, as it is somewhat trial and error, but it is
a wonderful solution to the mismatch problem."
Finding Access for Stabilization Work
CONTRACTORS also face challenges when it comes to sta-
bilizing buildings. The work itself doesn't pose a problem-it's
getting to the work area that's tough. Accessing walls, steeples
or domes can take ingenuity, and a lot of scaffolding.
"The original architects didn't think of people working
on these locations years later," Niewiadomski said. "To get
at some of these items, the scaffolding contractors dream
up new ways to do things."
National Restoration Systems recently handled the restoration
of a dome and worked on a chimney for the InterContinental
Hotel in downtown Chicago work that didn't start until the
40th floor. (See page 14 for images.) The project entailed installing
tube and clamp scaffolding from four different roofs on three ele-
vations to access the chimney. The scaffolding also had to support
the 600-pound stones the workers were taking off the chimney.
"There are many challenges to figuring out access to the
worksite and how to work safely," said Frank Jamison, president
of Jamison Masonry Restoration LLC in Oreland, Pa. The com-
pany handles a great deal of masonry repair work and historic
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building renovations. "On
churches, the steeple is the
highest part of the building
and takes a beating from
Mother Nature. You have to
create a means to support
the structure."
He sometimes works
with an engineer to deter-
mine the best course for sta-
bilizing a building or parts
of a building. "It's almost
like you have to do forensic
work to come down to a
structural level that's sound"
Jamison said.
Structural work is done
only when structural fail-
ures are causing a problem,
deGruchy said.
"Each component of the
restoration is not difficult in
itself. The place where the
hardest work is found is in
the diagnosis of what is the
root cause of the problem,
and the interpretation of
what should effectively be done while following [the architect's]
original intent for the architectural details of a building," deGruchy
said. "We don't want to change the building, but only touch it in the
areas where our intervention is needed and leave the rest alone."
Repairing the Repair Job
UNFORTUNATELY, repairing masonry buildings and
doing it correctly isn't always the same thing, as deGruchy
found out last January when he reworked a project in Florida's
Panhandle region.
"We were called in to undo what [another contractor) called
repointing and get various details throughout the building back
in order," deGruchy said. "You have to have a lot of patience to see
a mess like this... and not walk away. It is a challenge to reverse
the mess someone else created and help the building owner get
back on track with the conservation of their historic structure."
deGruchy removed the surface treatment that the contrac-
tor had put on the wall, then patched and replaced brick as
needed with his custom formulated patch material. He made
the color matches for the mortar, brick patch and stains. With
more than 25 years of experience restoring historic masonry
buildings, deGruchy said he's had every type of curveball
thrown at him regarding "botched up" historical buildings, and
he's been able to successfully repair them.
"One huge challenge is knowing that there are more fly-by-
night masons saying they do restoration... and calling it the
same as what we do," he said. "Sometimes their work is not so
glaringly bad, but often it is still just as devastating to the long-
run conservation of the structure."