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Hope Mill Restoration |
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Wildlife Damage
The ceilings of the second-floor rooms were removed to clean
out raccoon debris. Vandals had kicked in plastered walls, and
other parts of the walls had to be removed to clean up raccoon
droppings. We used professional help to disinfect the area.
Raccoons had chewed more than halfway through some of the wall
studs. Many of the cross-bracing members on the ceiling joists
were completely chewed through and had to be replaced.
We installed new drywall in the second-floor museum rooms and
applied stucco and paint to these new walls. The ceiling is
now shellacked knotty pine. Two vertical columns, 11"x12",
were rotten; new columns were positioned next to these to take
the load. This required jacking the roof structure temporarily
to get them in place. We also replaced the electrical wiring.
While doing so, we reached over one of the horizontal beams
and found that we could lift out rotten wood for a third of
its length. The beam was 24' long and 11"x12" in section.
We removed it and replaced it with eight 2"x12" joists
nailed together.
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The
circular saw |
The
48" circular saw and its carriage are located on a mezzanine
level, about 8' above grade. This saw-room floor was supported
on concrete footings with timber columns. The grade was muck
and years of rotten saw dust. The area was wet and smelly due
to slow water leakage from the dam. The footings had not been
dug deeply enough and were tipping, so we jacked the floor,
removed the old footings and poured new 18" diameter footings
anchored into the bedrock. The wood columns were shortened enough
to remove any rot.
We scooped out all the muck, down to the bedrock, and it became
obvious that there was seepage from the dam that would have
to be drained. We filled the area up to original grade with
crushed stone and covered it with a 4" thick reinforced
concrete floor. At the downstream side of the building, we dug
a French drain to carry the seepage water back to the river.
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Other Articles from this Issue |
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