Traditional Masonry Archives

Building Renovation and Restoration

Many times bidding on a public works job is like a ride on an old outdated roller coaster. You don't know if you will finish the ride or half way through be hurtled through the air only to land upside down. Needless to say the risks are great. Not only is the risk great but it is mandatory that you put up a surety bond for a debt you don't owe.

When reviewing public works projects past and present, the same old thought comes to mind, "how in the world can that contractor restore that project for that price." As we all know, some projects do end up on the short end of the stick. Materials are substituted, unskilled labor is used, inexperienced subcontractors are hired and, if this isn't bad enough, boilerplate specifications are used that don't pertain to the project. Talk about change orders.

Armed with this information, my goal with the Union Station project was to keep the playing field even for all the perspective contractors, stay within budget, and get the absolute best product. This may sound like a huge goal, however, the answer to achieving it is simple — Control, Control, Control!

Phase One
The Train Shed roof was comprised of seven acres of smoke vents, skylights, and monitors. The roof material was made of polyurethane foam and mismatched use of silicone and urethane top coating. I had calls from every manufacturer from Dow Chemical to Uncle Johns Recycled Roofing Material Co., and they all had just the product I needed. The barrage of product data and brochures was overwhelming. After a few heart felt discussions with the architect it was time to formulate a strategy and get back to reality.

Objectives: Budget and a 10-year warranty. How many mils does it take to get a 10-year warranty from the manufacturers? The answer was 25 mils. The solution to this dilemma was to specify 25 mils and write the specifications for the project that would encompass all the uniqueness and existing conditions of the structure.

Quality Control: Hire an independent laboratory that was familiar with the system and method of application. I wanted control of the quality standards. Did I mention budget? The bid came in at 110K less than my original budget. This allowed the team a healthy contingency to take care of the unforeseen deteriorated foam.

Phase Two
The masonry stabilization phase of this project proved to be the most challenging of all. With about three million to spend for the Head House and Train Shed combined, we decided to divide the scope of work into two different projects with three different repair categories for each project. We wanted to create a shopping list that would be easy for the contractors to bid and give the owner options to choose from.

The two main projects were the Head House masonry and the Train Shed masonry. The first repair category was life safety issues. This meant to fix anything that might fall off the building and cause injury to someone. Second were structural issues or repair, what was not structurally sound and third was the esthetics or cosmetic issues.

To help make it easier for the contractors to bid, the plans were made very specific in the areas of repair and the quantities of brick replacement and footage of repointing. Basically the contractors were bidding on labor and equipment. The owner would be responsible for the purchase of the material. This meant a more even playing field for the contractors and more bid control for the owner.

The issue of quality control became one of the most difficult tasks to overcome since the owner was purchasing the material. Finding the brick was nearly impossible.

For nearly a year the management team assigned to this project searched diligently for a brick manufacturer that could reproduce a product similar to the existing brick that would match its color, texture, size, and strength.

At the beginning we thought this would be a relatively easy task, but this was proven not to be so. To have an understanding of our problem we first need to look at the history of the brick manufacturers over the last two decades. In the early eighties most of the manufacturers were under pressure by the Environmental Protection Agency to cut pollution emissions. This involved a costly process that most brick manufacturers could not afford. So subsequently a majority of them closed down. Most of the brick presses and equipment were either purchased by the surviving companies or abandoned. This basically changed the production from a hands on, labor intensive method to a tunnel kiln, highly automated, mass production industry with limited ability to alter for any special or unique requirements.

The manufacturers today have three basic methods of making brick. First is the hand pressed method, limited to a few manufacturers, which creates an undesirable texture with wide variations in the end product. Second is the molded or formed method, which would give us the size but not the texture. And third is the extruded method, which also limits size and texture.

The uniqueness of the Union Station brick brought forth several problems. The Head House brick is a pressed brick. We found only one manufacturer, Kasten Masonry, in the country that still makes brick in this fashion. After nearly two months of negotiations and cost analysis it was determined, regardless of cost, that their hydraulic press which was made in 1926 could not be retooled to make the required brick size. Although the color and texture of their production product was a very close if not an identical match, the difference in size could not be made up in the mortar joints.

The Train Shed brick is also a pressed brick with radius edges. We could find no one in the industry that could come close to duplicating this style. However there are some manufacturers that make a buff colored brick and by mixing the assorted colors there would be some resemblance but not a total match of the color. The texture would be smooth, similar to the existing brick, but the size and shape would be different. Once we realized that the pressed brick was not available, we focused on color only for the upper east and west ends of the Train Shed building where most of the deterioration had occurred. Using this approach would allow us to harvest about 15,000 existing bricks, from the bridge areas at street level, to place on the north side of the structure where visibility is the greatest.

Our approach has always been to match the brick as closely as possible to insure structural integrity and preserve the historical features of the buildings. Our search led us from New York to California and even the European market. As of this date only one manufacturer has been selected to provide the material for the project. It so happened that we found a brick manufacturer, in our own backyard who was willing to make the brick to our specifications. Dan Swartz, owner of Colonial Brick, has been in the brick business for nearly a half century. Dan still makes bricks the old fashion way, with periodic kilns, his is one of two plants still operating in the country.

My advice to any person or agency planning a masonry restoration project would be to take your time and do your homework. The contractors today who are selling waterproofing, coatings, and a variety of chemical cleaners are the same ones who in the fifties and sixties were selling sandblasting as the only way to clean and restore brick. Take a real hard look at the history of the building. If it is over a hundred years old obviously something has worked right. Most importantly look at the system, the brick and the mortar, together as one.

This project has been a learning process for the whole team. We decided early on that if the project was to be completed with a high standard of quality, using the right products, and within budget three things had to be accomplished. Control, Control, Control.

Gene King, Mid-West Builders, Public Works/Historical Projects, 105 Anderson Place, Martinville, Indiana 46151, email: merlin@scican.net

TM