Limelight on New York City

New York City surpassed Philadelphia in 1790 as the largest city in the United States. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries immigration and modern developments changed many facets of the people, transportation and infrastructure. But what still remains in the city that never sleeps are gorgeous relics of the past, being preserved for generations to come. A team from LimeWorks.us recently visited the Big Apple to take look at a few places which have been repaired in-kind with historically appropriate materials.

The New York Life Building was completed in 1928 at a cost of $21 Million. It’s currently undergoing a repair campaign using Lithomex for stone repairs and patchwork.

The Irish Hunger Memorial stands as a tribute and reminder of the Great Irish Famine and the tragedy of world hunger. Stones were donated from each county of Ireland and even an entire cottage was transported and reassembled on site at Battery Park in Manhattan. Historically accurate lime mortar was used in the construction of this memorial which ensures that it will remain standing tall.

The Eldridge Street Synagogue is an incredibly gorgeous testament to the architecture and influence that once spanned across the Lower East Side from the Eastern European Jewish community. This was the first Synagogue constructed by the Eastern European Jews emigrating from Russian, Romania, and Poland. It was built in the late 1800s and flourished into the mid 20th Century. As the neighborhood changed and new immigrants arrived, membership dropped and the synagogue was left virtually abandoned through the rest of the 20th Century. The rescue effort of the Eldridge Street Synagogue began in the late 70s when volunteers and the Friends of the Eldridge Street Synagogue initiated efforts that led to an $18.5 million dollar repair campaign. This campaign included repointing work of the facade using historically accurate Natural Hydraulic Lime Mortar from LimeWorks.us Additional repairs to the ceiling, wallpaper, paint and almost every aspect of the central room was restored returning it to its original glory. The final element was set during the fall of 2010, the stained-glass window commissioned by Kiki Smith and Deborah Gans is the only 21st century element inside the historic space.

More details of the Eldridge Street Synagogue restoration can be found in the latest issue ofTraditional Building Magazine

We also visited the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and the Ephesus Seventh Day Adventist Church in Harlem. Both have used in-kind repair materials from LimeWorks.us. By using breathable masonry repair materials, all of these historic structures will surely stand as testaments to the rich history of the Big Apple for generations to come.

-LimeWorks.us (Linked-in : Blog : Facebook : Twitter)

All Photos Copyright: Sean K Maxwell

Restoration of the Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York City with Ecologic® Mortar

In the heart of what is now Chinatown on the Lower East Side in Manhattan lives the Eldridge Street Synagogue. A very important Jewish Synagogue built in the late 1800s, it was the first synagogue to be built by the Eastern European Jews emigrating from Russia, Romania and Poland. The synagogue flourished for its first 50 years and was revered for its gorgeous vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows. But the membership began to dwindle following the great depression and was abandoned in the 1950s. Harsh city life ate away at the building, it became home to flocks of pigeons and other critters. Leaks developed and the stairs became unstable, the remaining members retreated to the basement where they remained for almost half a century.

The rescue effort of the Eldridge Street Synagogue began in the late 70s when volunteers and the Friends of the Eldridge Street Synagogue initiated efforts that led to an $18.5 million dollar repair campaign. This campaign included repointing work of the facade using Ecologic® Mortar from LimeWorks.us Additional repairs to the ceiling, wallpaper, paint and almost every aspect of the central room was restored returning it to its original glory. The final element was set during the fall of 2010, the stained-glass window commissioned by Kiki Smith and Deborah Gans is the only 21st century element inside the historic space.

More details of the Eldridge Street Synagogue restoration can be found in the latest issue of Traditional Building Magazine

-LimeWorks.us (Linked-in : Blog : Facebook : Twitter)

Facade after restoration, photo credit: Kate Milford

All Photos Copyright Sean K Maxwell

Green Construction in Today’s Built Environment- FAQ Friday with Randy Ruth

When people talk about “green” construction, I often wonder what the environmental benefit of the construction is. Is it new construction? If so what is the environmental impact? I would hope that a perfectly good existing building wasn’t torn down to make way for supposed progress.

It is my belief that the greenest building is the one that is already standing and most likely played a role in a community’s development. It could be an old department store, manufacturing warehouse or barn. Sometimes plans call for only the façade of a building to be saved which helps keep the architectural integrity of a community intact. This can be a positive compromise because the more useful modernized building can be built and yet some historic fabric is retained to tell the story and retain the flavor of what the building was in its local context.

In the end, as long as something is retained for adaptive reuse, whether it is for aesthetics or the entire structure, there is a measure of success in reducing a “green” construction project’s carbon footprint.

In most instances, a building that has been saved from the wrecking ball is old. What does old really mean? Well that’s pretty subjective but I would like to think of old in the context of US building history as being pre 1930, or roughly 80 years and older. When an old building is going to be adaptively reused one way or another then appropriate materials should be used to fix what is broken with compatible repair materials. Using in-kind repairs will further promote the legacy and overall usefulness of a building for years to come while lowering its impact on the environment.

Old buildings are usually very strong and often made of brick and stone that has proven to stand the test of time. However it’s the mortar that binds those materials together and meant to be sacrificial. Mortar should fail first not irreplaceable historic masonry units. The embodied energy to replace a masonry unit is much greater than the mortar. Therefore, it is imperative that a suitable replacement mortar be used to mend what is failing and the mortar be weaker and slightly more permeable than the surrounding masonry units.

In the case of masonry mortar, lime is typically the binder in these old buildings and should be regarded as key to the dynamic that has allowed the building to be in service so long. Often the original mortar is still in place, proving its superiority and therefore should be replaced in-kind. The use of modern day Portland cement based mortars, which are stronger and denser when placed over the top of lime based mortars, are less sympathetic to the historic masonry and can trap moisture causing further damage to the historic fabric. The historic masonry units and adjacent historic elements can best be kept in conservation with the use of the right lime mortar. The correct Natural Hydraulic Lime (NHL) mortars when used where they are appropriate can become a compatible repair materials that is sympathetic  to the working dynamics of an historic masonry building. Secondly, NHL mortars remain reversible without damage to the building unlike the alternative which is the too over-used hard, brittle and dense Portland cement based mortars which are known to cause irreversible damage in conjunction with historic masonry fabric.

-LimeWorks.us (Linked-in : Blog : Facebook : Twitter)

Limelight on historic Guanajuato, Mexico

We are thankful for your work as an associate in green building and historic building conservation. Every six weeks we plan to focus the limelight on a story that we think will strengthen the collective resolve to remain strong advocates of resource conservation. A snapshot video or “Spark Segment”, as we call it, is how we will put the limelight on highly skilled craftspeople, sharp engineers or creative designing architects and builders. A spark segment will celebrate their current work or the legacy of great works they’ve left behind. With each installment we hope to capture the essence of “movers and shakers”, (people, places and objects), that inspire us to continue pressing forward. We remain faithfully yours as advocates in this most sacred work.

This segment features the city of Guanajuato Mexico which brings us a sampling of authentic Moorish detailing found in its natural surround with an intact and rich cultural element. The inspiration to put the limelight on this region comes especially from the passion that is evident in the hearts of the people of this culture which has spilled out into their built environment. This is just one example of vibrant lime colorwashes and the conservation of regional heritage by people who care. Let’s continue to be that type of conservator in the areas where we exhibit our influence as professionals.

-LimeWorks.us (Linked-in : Blog : Facebook : Twitter)

Lancaster Central Market Wins Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Award using Natural Hydraulic Lime

Congratulations to the city of Lancaster and Hammel Associates Architects, LLC. They were recently awarded for the restoration of the Lancaster Central Market in Lancaster, PA. Located in the middle of downtown, this space has been used as a market since 1730 and is said to be the oldest continuously operating farmers market in the country. The market structure was designed by architect James Warner and constructed in 1889 of locally produced red brick on top of a brownstone base. The market was named one of America’s top ten “Great Public Spaces in America” by the American Planning Association in 2009.

Many efforts were made in the recent rehabilitation project to restore the market’s elements including the original windows and doors. The damaged bricks were replaced and the building was repointed with Natural Hydraulic Lime 3.5 and deGruchy’s Ecologic® Mortar provided by LimeWorks.us  as a complementary mortar to the original lime mortar of 1889.

These appropriate historic restoration techniques worked to bring the market back to its original glory for the enjoyment by generations to come.

Andy’s Podcast Interview with the National Center for Preservation Technology & Training on the Role of Lime and its Continued Importance Today

Andy deGruchy of LimeWorks.us spoke with Jeff Guin the National Center for Preservation Technology & Training recently on the role of lime in historic architecture and in preservation, as well as in new green construction. Andy has over 30 years of masonry experience working with historic structures throughout the United States and abroad. He has been published in magazines and books sharing his knowledge of the historic application and current techniques for the use of lime mortars, plasters and paints.

Download this episode as an mp3 or Subscribe via iTunes 

Transcript:

Jeff Guin: Tell me about a few of the structures that you have worked on.

Andy deGruchy

A. DeGruchy: We’ve worked here in Pennsylvania with my other company, DeGruchy Masonry & Restoration, for the last 27 years we’ve been restoring brick and stone buildings.  Some of those have included work at Hope Lodge, Daniel Boone’s Homestead,William Penn’s Homestead,  James Hobin’s (architect of the White House) memorial in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Washington DC. Also, a myriad of historic Victorian homes, farmhouses in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where I live and all sorts of accoutrements, smokehouses, and summer kitchens and basements–some not-so-glorious buildings, but just a lot of hard work in the maintenance using appropriate materials to fix these vintage structures.

JG: So do you primarily work in the Pennsylvania area and the northeast or do you travel to other parts of the country as well?

AD:  Well we’ve concentrated our work within about an hour and a half driving radius of where I live and where my shop is in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.  However, we’ve done work as far as Florida and consulting work on the use of our materials as far as Puerto Rico and Maine out to Oregon and all over.

JG: …and to Nashville, I know, because that’s where I met you originally at the NCPTT Nationwide Cemetery Summit.  Are cemeteries something you work on frequently?

AD: We do not do a lot of cemetery work ourselves, although I did mention I restored the architect to the White Houses’ James Hobin and his memorial  in Mt. Olivet Cemetery, and dotted throughout our history, there has been some work on statuary and memorials.  But my connection with cemeteries has been at the prompting of a conservator and professor at Columbia who saw our laboratory and the work we are doing and said, “you know, you are the best kept secret, you really need to step up to the plate and tell the world that you are here,” and that is why we are even doing the radio interview now trying to get the word out that we have some great resources.

Understanding Lime Terminology

JG: Taking that a step further, there is a lot of confusion around the terminology related to lime mortars and specifications.  I wonder if you could break some of that down for me. Talk about the different types of lime and the differences between historically accurate lime as compared to the improved or modern types.

AD: Yes, that’s a very good question, and it is a little bit of a peeve with me because, you know, really lime is lime is lime and has been the same raw material from the beginning of time until now.  Nothing has changed, but a lot of smoke and mirrors and confusion puts the end-user, building owners, architects, engineers, and masons in a state of confusion. Really, it is a very simple thing to understand:  That is, lime has always fallen into two categories; it’s always been pure high calcium, 98% pure lime.  When I say lime, I do mean the shells and bones of marine life that build up over millions of years without any impurities in it.  If it was 98% pure, just comprised of that, then that is called high-calcium lime and then it falls into the second category, which is impure lime.  Now we designate that into a breakdown of two areas.  One would be dolomitic, which would have a smaller percentage of magnesium and then a magnesium lime which has a larger percentage of magnesium.

We look at ancient structures throughout the world, a lot of materials scientists will study them and say, “let’s not look at what is broken about this building, let’s look at what’s working so well that it is still here after 500 years.”  They will find common denominators. And with the mortar, they find that the basic rule in masonry is, you never can fight water and win.  Water will always win in the end.  So, the mortars in these ancient buildings had a lime and sand composition that would help to process moisture out to the atmosphere again.  It would not trap moisture.  Had it trapped moisture, or reacted with sulphates and other negative reactions, then the demise of the structure would have been accelerated, and it would not be here 500 years later.  But they found that when you use a lime that is a catalyst of processing water back to the atmosphere, now you have a symbiotic relationship with nature and with water.  Therefore, you are now not in conflict with nature, but you are going to survive because you found a way to get along.  The way that it does get along is that when the limestone, which could be a block of this sediment that I mentioned, is burned, it is the one stone that when you cook it for 48 hours, maintained at between 1,650 to 2,000 degrees, you will push-off the carbon dioxide content in the stone. In doing that, after the stone has cooled, it weighs 44% lighter than it did when it went into the kiln. When you reintroduce water to it, it will violently take that water in what’s called slaking–like slake your thirst–and it will boil the water it sits in within a 10 minute period.  However, a little known fact is that if you look at that same mortar now that has been made with that lime putty and sand has been added to this putty that has had the water reintroduced to the limestone, you can go with a future 10 years, 20 years and 30 years and the lime is always slowly converting back into a limestone again through carbonation. It violently draws carbon dioxide out of the slaking bath at first, and it is a young buck at that time. But 5 years later, 10 years later, 50 years later, it is still trying to convert back into a limestone and will always draw carbon dioxide out of the air. So that is the symbiotic relationship again with nature. When all these nor’easters and wind and water blow on buildings, they are delivering carbon dioxide and the lime mortar joints are hydrophilic. So these walls that get saturated actually give up their water towards the attracting lime mortar which then says, “can we have that carbon dioxide from you because we are still converting back into a stone” and then releases the rest of the vapor out to the atmosphere. So this dynamic that has been going on, which material scientists have come to understand, is something that has preserved historic fabric. Because no longer does the soft sandstones and bricks that had they had the wetting and drying cycles go through there, faces would have exfoliated and been damaged. Now the historic bricks and stones give up their moisture to the hydrophilic in attracting lime mortar.

When the Romans who were famous as architects and builders, they burned lime at this time-honored temperature to maintain the reactivity of the lime between 1,650 and 2,000 degrees, it had the ability to convert back into a limestone. However, today’s modern production dead burns lime and in many cases and over-cooks it. When you say to the lime that you can get it at any hardware store available in the country today, and say well, I’m going to add water and sand to you, I’d like you to convert back into a limestone and become as hard as hopefully you were at one time as a stone: that inert dust can only be used for adding plasticity, a flow-ability to a cement mortar or controlling the setting time of a cement mortar.  The majority of the available hydrated dolomitic Type S hydrated lime in the United States has just sand and water added to it as a stand-alone binder. It does not have the ability become as significant and durable as the historic mortars because of the burning temperature.  So the problem–although there is only two kinds of lime in the world and always has been–the way the lime is cooked has been changed in that it is being sped up for the process of production because the key elements it’s only asked to do today is that plasticity and control of setting time of a cementitious mortar.  We have personally not had any success with using a Type S hydrated lime and adding sand and water and then putting it into service as an exterior above grade mortar in extreme free stall cycles like the northeast, mid-Atlantic states where I am from.

The limes to reproduce historic mortar when we work at some local building, someone might say, “Are you going to go build a kiln and find local lime and reproduce every element as it originally was?”  Well, the cost becomes a problem, so we import the natural occurring hydraulic lime, which is pure high calcium and evenly dispersed silica so that we know when we add certain percentages of sand, we are going to get a final result that is going to have a known value for liquid and vapor permeability, PSI strengths … So it is true that in the United States and Pennsylvania, maybe these historic structures were not built with French hydraulic lime but it is a suitable replacement that pound for pound and cost-wise, is reasonable and we are putting in an in-kind replacement that will do no harm.

New Uses for Lime

JG: Do you see lime being used just in historic applications or are there new applications for lime now?

AD: We have a 100,000 bag order for a tropical resort that we are creating a lime for a green build.  Because, as I mentioned, the mortars that we have used for historic restoration, our intent was only to use them to do an in-kind replacement like-to-like–instituting no material that was going to cause an associated damage to historic fabrics surrounding the stone or brick, you know, like the window frame or something expanding and damaging because of what we used.  However, as I mentioned about people from the cemetery, conservators and fine arts finishing people–we’ve also found that it really meets the criteria for gold and platinum LEED credits. When you are trying to lower the embodied energy, the building of what has been used by reclaiming and recycling, you know, existing post consumer material and getting all sorts of energy advantages in improving indoor air quality, they find that the lime just to begin with–because there is 7,500 years of building history proving that it works, where modern cements although introduced in the 1870’s in the United States, in my opinion did not fully take hold until after WWII.  So the window of time where cement absolutely dominated for all veneer mortars and building and stucco and everything, came like 1945 until now.  But the embodied energy to create a pound of Portland cement, which is the binder for modern stuccos and brick laying mortar and stoneware is incredibly high.  Matter-of-fact, I believe the efficiency is very low because there is more waste than there is usable product.

Making Lime Repairs

JG: Now lime mortar does have to be re-applied occasionally because it does work with the environment.  How often does that have to be done?

AD: Well there are many historic structures that are in the United States that are only just receiving their first re-pointing.  So, in the Philadelphia region, the area where I am from, we will see a historic building that you know, maybe was re-pointed in the name of preservation and maybe under the guidance of some government agencies and done only in the 1980’s, and yet it has to be re-re-pointed and it had a Type O or high lime content mortar with a little Portland cement added.  Yet, the 200 year old buildings in this region (down the street from the one fixed in the name of preservation) we will find that sometimes these buildings are actually in better repair.  What my goal was originally was to import lime from France and do the things that we were doing was kind of pursuing excellence and saying you know, if there is the concept of getting a 100-year fix because we see that these buildings are 100 – 200 years old and no one’ s re-pointing them.  They did not have the budget to fix it and it is in better shape than the one they did have the budget to fix. Maybe we should try to mirror the properties of the original material.  So, I would say that if a lime application is done appropriately, there is no reason–just like you see in Europe, old plaster over stone, brick and stone buildings or pointed buildings and no one is touching them for 100 years–there is no reason why you won’t get a 100 year life cycle if the project is done correctly.

JG: Is using lime mortars and re-pointing something that everyday people can do or is it just something for the experts?

AD: It’s all dependent upon the skill level of the individual.  So, we’ve met homeowners who do better work than some masons that we know and then we know young masons that their skill level just comes right out.  So what it comes down to, just what pointing is. It is not rocket science.  It’s just binder and aggregate.  It’s sand and lime and then it’s just placing that between bricks and stones but as you know and many who have observed historic buildings throughout the country, they will see blaring examples of bright white mortar that did not match the texture, the tooling, the color of the surrounding area and you have to wonder what were they thinking when they did that pointing job or built that wall like that and to this day, I still do not know what they are thinking but it is everywhere.  So, I think it boils down to not that it is so hard to do, but is someone willing to take the time and care for the project. That being said, some of our best customers, the ones who we love to work with, who are just savvy homeowners who have done their own research, they concluded what they wanted, how to do it, they will take a class and then they will take the time if they are going to do point the whole home, they will commit themselves to: “I’m going to do maybe one square foot but I’m going to do it right.”

Ian Cramb

JG: Tell me about Ian Cramb.

AD: Ian Cramb is a great man, 83-year old Scottish stone mason who lives in Bangor, Pennsylvania. He and his family have been steeped in stone masonry since 1750 in Edinburgh, Scotland and along the way. I think the common denominator of all these craftsman and artisans is love for the trade, and that caused him to assemble a book back in 1992 called The Art Of The Stone Mason.What made it very popular was in it, you could see the love he had for the trade and just carefully sketching out details describing how to cut a stone or how to build a stone arch or naming parts of a wall. All these things were very popular with masons because it was a throwback to how masonry had historically been done and those details again that is a common denominator that is going to make the outcome of any project become excellent and last for the 100-year fix.  So, he began to develop a following of people in stone masonry and I being one of them, bought his book years ago and then of course he is local and I touched base with him about some things and became friends with him.  Next thing you know, he had to get all the information together for his second book, which is The Stone Mason’s Gospel According to Ian Cramb.  As we drove along one day while on some projects we were building, he said, “You know, I can’t finish my second book and it’s all your fault,” and I said, “Well what you mean by that,” and he said, “You know, in all the conversations we have regarding the lime, you really have a better handle on the technical aspects and how to explain it than I do and I want to put that in this book.”  So he asked me to edit and read through his book and understand what he is writing, then put some information that is going to clarify lime.  So I helped him produce this second book with my computer science major son who is in college, to produce the book on the internet and we produced a few hundred copies and we have them now actually on our website for sale and that is The Stone Mason’s Gospel According to Ian Cramb.

Sharing the Knowledge

JG: So you kind of see it as part of your job, your responsibility, to pass the knowledge along; to make sure that people understand not just why it’s important but what the history of lime mortars is.

AD: Yes, very much so.  I think that there was a time when masons would of course hide the trade secrets.  They had their mason marks and they would mark the stones that they produced and shaped and dressed and they got paid piecemeal that way and some of the ancient trade secrets that sort of trail off into the Masonic tradition of the non-operating masons.  In today’s masonry, as we know, all our buildings are accelerating in degradation and as the buildings are getting older and older and fewer and fewer people are going into the trade, it has been my position to say there is no more time for trade secrets.  If anybody wants to know a trade secret we are glad to share it because it just does not seem like anything that resembles close to actually doing physical hard work, is not getting much of an audience of young people wanting to get into it.  However, those who do get into it, find it incredibly rewarding and then ask themselves, what was I thinking, I was going to go to college and I was going to be stuck in a cubicle somewhere, so  I am very much in favor of disseminating knowledge, giving it away, but I see a lot of exploitation of historic resources for the sake of personal gain by keeping a patient sick and not getting in there and putting in a repair that would give a long service life, and so I am totally opposed to that and I want to blow the blinders off of that thing and I want to shed as much light on these subjects so that we can move on with the good and excellent conservation of our nation’s historic resources.

JG: Andy thanks so much for being on the podcast.

AD: I’m glad you could include me and hope that it was informative.

-LimeWorks.us (Linked-in : Blog : Facebook : Twitter)

NCPTT original post

Closed for Restoration

The New York Auxiliary Monument is currently closed for restoration in Gettysburg, PA. This is just one of the monuments which has incorporated materials from LimeWorks.us.

A few links with information on the monument…

http://www.gettysburg.stonesentinels.com/NY/NYstateAux.php

http://civilwarwiki.net/wiki/State_of_New_York_Auxiliary_Monument_(Gettysburg)

Natural Hydraulic Lime – Creates Old-World finish That is a Perfect Finish Selection for Wood-Fired Ovens, Foundations, and Other Masonry Projects (via The Arch Blog)

Great post about a unique way to use Ecologic® Mortar.

The ARCH, known in part for it’s natural finish options, has recently gained more experience with a Natural Hydraulic Lime finish product that we offer.  Jim Erskine’s masonry experience spans thirty plus years, and as with most masons, his experience … Read More

via The Arch Blog