The newly renovated front door took 8 hours to strip with a heat gun (mask included). It now has three coats of fresh paint (each coat takes an hour). We also made repairs to the locks before we started. Still, some work is necessary to complete on the frame which has a split. It had seven coats of paint that had to be removed.

It is the end of November 2005, and after over two months of work and the help of some great people, we have completed the major renovations on another apartment. The picture to the right is what we call the outhouse. The completed portion you see above actually hangs out over the courtyard at Green Street. In the process of completely gutting the room, we discovered the plumbing contractor's original drawings. The bathroom was added in 1935. The following pictures and captions will chronicle the story.

Here are two views of the old bathroom. The concrete floor was cracked from settling. You can see that the water lines ran along the wall, and the original tile on the wall was also cracked. Notice the medicine cabinet. The plumbing ran under the floor embedded in the concrete. Drainage was very slow with more than occasional leaks that filtered to the roof below on the first floor.

Lonnie Crutchfield, a contractor and my son-in-law, with the assistance of James Wright, a graduate student, gutted the entire room. We then replumbed the bathroom with all the pipes between the 12" joists and layed marble tile. Scott Matney, a resident at the BI House and also a finish carpenter, worked to repair walls and fit the doors with new framing.

We hired a company to strip the doors. I stripped the medicine cabinet with a heat gun and then finished the woodword with amber shellac. Shellac, as I learned, was the finish of choice at the turn of the 20th century. Shellac comes from the Lac bug in India and is mixed with Alcohol. It is very easy to work with and gives a warm finish. We built a 6" platform to accomodate the drainage pipes and covered in marble. The original design of wall tiles was maintained with the addition of a dark gray accent. The entire apartment was rewired to code.

Here you see the finished cabinet. Charlene Melhorn, who works for BI, spent two weeks doing touch up work on the apartment. Here you see her artistic design around and in the medicine cabinet.

On November 10, 2005 the BI House received a new high-efficiency heating system. After replacing an old boiler unit that had served the house for over 25 years, we are glad to say good bye to a unit that was less than 86% efficiency and made a lot of noise. The new 99% efficiency system looks like, in the words of a house member, a Porsche without the tires and driver's seat. Pictured below is Chris Szymanski, owner of the Fort Washington Heating and Cooling Company, who installed the system in about a week.

Natural gas prices have soared, already with a 25% rate hick in October, with another rate hike expected in December. The house heating bill for 2004-5 was nearly $15,000. Coupled with open fireplaces and old drafty windows, a new heating system was an important step to minimize heating costs. During the months of October and November, we installed replacement windows, including rusted casement windows and over 35 storm windows in every part of the house.

The new heating system does not have a boiler, as our old unit did. The old boiler also took a considerable amount of space in the basement.

Once removed, a frame was built on the west wall to mount the two new units. We will be pouring concrete and installing a sump pump.

The old heating system was carted off for scrap metal.

We contracted Ray Tatlow, recommended by a neighbor, to assist us in getting a new heating system. An interesting note is that Tatlow knew the former owners, the Van Hengels, back in the 60's and had serviced the plumbing of the house. He remembered Van Hengel as one who carefully maintained the house.

The sub-contractor and installer of the system was Chris Szymanski. An intelligent, courteous and friendly person, we would highly recommend his work. He knows the system and is an educator, as well. When I would ask a question about the system, he would take the time to pull out pen and paper, draw a diagram and explain in detail how things work.

Chris Szymanski, Owner
Fort Washington Heating and Cooling
267-474-5128

We have met more of our neighbors in the past month than the past two years at the BI House as a result of our landscaping efforts in the front yard. For the first two years, our efforts were on the structural issues. Here is what it looks like now.

So...we needed some down and sun time. It had been a long winter. The BI staff and two BI House members took the day (April 13, 2005) to plant some needed trees in our barren front yard.

We started at 7 AM by picking up our trees from the nursery. We finished at 3 PM. They included two dogwoods, a weeping cherry, a crab apple and a Japanese maple. Thanks to Jason Nicholas, Sylvan Argo, Lauren Lim, Suzanne Lanza and John Austin (not pictured).

Jason Nicholas and Sylvan Argo began by digging holes. The front porch used to extend across the front of the house and we discovered discarded bricks underneath the grass and topsoil.

Lauren and Suzanne worked on transplanting some day lilles and preparing for bird feeders.

Suzann Lanza transplants the day lilies.

American Gothic.

In February 2005 we discovered a small leak coming from the concrete near the the boiler. The following entry describes the basement of the house and a chronology of repairs.

This is the entrance to basement from the outside and a photo taken in 2003 at inspection.

Above was a locksmith's office located in the basement and rented from the previous owner. It is being converted to a house tool room.

There was considerable mold coming from a carpet in the room I call Pango (Swahili for cave). Much of the drywall had disentegrated because of moisture. When the carpet was ripped up, we discovered that cardboard had been used to shim the floor.

There were three pickup loads of old paint stored in the basement at the time of possession. Despite a promise from the former owner to remove them, we were left with the clean-up. We loaded my pickup and took them to a city recycling site. The intersting thing is that these were stored in the area of the basement where the gas meters are located. It is now clean of all old paint.

In January 2004 the water heater broke. The original inspection had given it a life of several years. Water heaters are heavy. It took several men to remove it from the basement. The entrance to the basement is located in the back next to the Tulpehocken driveway.

The new water heater took five men to bring into the basement.

The original heating system was radiator steam heat and later converted to hot water. During the summer, we had many of the radiator valves replaced and several rusted water pipes. We thought the system was ready for winter. Once the concrete was chipped from the pipe, water spewed into the basement.

Affordable Plumbing, our newest vendor, gave an estimate of $1,600 to replace the leaking pipe and another rusted pipe in another area of the basement. To repair the water heating system, the water must me drained from the system. In winter, this means that the heat is shut off for the day.

Completed work. Actually this picture was of the first completion. Water began to leak from the fitting and the plumbers had to dig out the wet concrete and resolder.

In January we contracted Kurtz Roofing to install a new roof. We asked five roofing companies to give us bids. They all came by, climbed the roof and left. Only Kurtz returned with an estimate.

There is a reason for this. As you can see from the following photo, the roof is complex with 5 chimneys and 12 dormers. It is over 24 feet from the ground. What may be more challenging is the amount of worn and rotted areas we discovered. There have been constant leaks for the past ten years and inside the house moisture has caused the plaster walls to blister.

The roofing began the beginning of January. "What do you do when it snows?" I asked Mark, the manager of the project. "We sweep it off and keep going," was his reply. We did have 12 inches of snow in mid-January and a very hard freeze. It stopped them. But by the first of February, they were back on the roof, as a result of dry and warmer weather.

They began at the front of the house. As you can see they covered the area with a huge tarp and began removing the old tile. Originally the house had slate shingles. I found a pile of these in the basement. We are not sure when the existing roof was put on the house, but it did not have the five years left estimated by the house inspection made when we purchased it.

The roofers are immigrants from Kyrgystan which borders China, Russia and Tajikistan. These are brave people and hard workers who use foam seats to keep from sliding off the roof. Only the supervisor speaks English. On one of the coldest days (4 degrees F.) I asked one if he had ever been in colder weather. "Yes, it was 40 dgrees below zero in Siberia. Very cold."

One of the decisions we made was not to restore the built-in gutters. Built-in gutters are an historic part of the house, but there was so much damage (see left) with much of the roofline broken that we decided to use hanging gutters. Built-in (hidden) gutters provide a nice line to the house, but when the water backs up, as it was doing in the BI House, it can cause much damage. Built-in gutters are traditionally lined with copper that is seamlessly sealed with solder. In the case of the BI house, the last roofer had lined the gutters with aluminum and sealed them with roofing sealant. Thus, when the temperature changes, the sealant cracks and water filters through the gutter. We have been amazed at how little of the roof is rotten. The huge beams (a full 12x3 inches) used in the 1800's are very strong.

Once the roof has been installed, hooks are mounted on the roof line. A 6" white gutter will then be suspended from the house.

December has been a slow month for renovations. With the end of the semester, grading papers, meetings, research forums and general student attention take precedence. But two days were available.

Walking up the steps to the BI House from Tulpehocken Street has not been the most pleasant site. The lower steps are made of granite while the upper steps are made of limestone. In consulting with a mason, I learned that we could try and lift the steps with a large bar and then undergird the stone with smaller stones. Saturday December 11 Kelli Wimbley, who enjoys the creative aspect of restoration, joined me to help make repairs to our steps.

Kelli used a hammer and chisel to remove the old concrete filler from the limestone (see left). We started at 8AM and the work was completed by about 1:30 when it began to rain. The intention was to mortar between the stone by nightfall. It generally takes three days for concrete to cure and with December weather turning cold, we were pressing it.

Once the concrete was chipped away, we lifted the one step that was sloping, and, while Kelli held it in place, I inserted a number of bricks to support the now level step. We used a large bar to to wedge the bottom step back into place, moving it about two inches that it had moved over the past decades. (readjusted position can be seen left) Our fear was that lifting and moving the limestone would crack the stone (as the mason had warned). It was successul. Ideally, we would remove all stone and rebuild, but it is not practical at this time. Future plans include rebuilding the front porch, which used to extend across the front of the house. That will be the time to completely rebuild.

On Sunday I arose at 4AM, graded papers for an hour, took Dixie (one of our tenants) to the airport and returned about 6:30. The night before, Vickie and I made a quick run to Home Depot to get two bags of cement. I needed to be through with any mortar work by 10AM to make it to church. By 9:30, I was able to mortar the steps with the hopes that two days of above freezing tempuratures would be enough time. Temperatures are to drop on Tuesday. I made it to church, and then attended BI's Champagne and Cake Reception at 4PM. It was a full day, as are most.