Challenge Program To Restore Delaware City Pump House
The pump house in Delaware City is located next to the city water building on Washington Street. The wooden clapboard building was built in the late 1800Õs and was the original pump house for the city. Recently it has housed a boxing gym, among other things, but has fallen into disrepair in the past ten years. The Challenge Program, in partnership with the City of Delaware City and the State Historic Preservation Office are restoring the building for use as a window restoration shop. All of the interior beadboard has been removed from the one-room building, and we are currently making structural repairs. The windows for the building will be the first project for our new Steam Stripper, as our trainees will completely restore the old sash. Our trainees have recently been involved in several window restoration projects, and with our new Steam Stripper we look forward to increasing our capacity soon.
Construction Crew Creates a Classic City Home
With the help of the Wilmington Housing Authority, we found a home at 1709 West St. that we worked on into November. This circa 1900 two-story 1500 square foot row home has been occupied by WHA residents and when the last tenant moved out officials decided to do a full rehab, then sell the home for market value upon completion.
We started by knocking down walls and tearing off plaster from side walls and ceilings. The stairs from the first floor to the second floor were located in the center of the house and did not even come close required building code. Access to the basement was located at the rear of the house, or kitchen area, and the staircase also needed to be brought up to code. We consolidated the two stair structures in the center of the home.
Once the home was "gutted" we concentrated on the basement. Beneath the kitchen area was a crawl space that we had to dig out by hand to pour a concrete "rat slab" (named for obvious reasons). We also cleaned the basement floor and waterproofed the foundation.
Upstairs, we replaced the sub-flooring with tongue-and-groove plywood. The floors around the stairway needed to be re-framed as well. We then laid out and built the interior walls.
Trainees removed and replaced windows, rebuilt the front porch, trimmed the exterior with aluminum capping that we fabricated on-site, and built the stairs and the handrails. Working alongside professional plumbers, electricians, roofers, and HVAC personnel, our trainees learned how to properly renovate a home.
The front porch has tongue-and-groove flooring and a beadboard ceiling above. The first floor features a ceramic tile landing area and Bolivian rosewood floor. Our trainees also crafted a new stairs leading to the second floor's 3 by 8 foot windows and recycled Douglas fir hallway.
Delaware Center for Horticulture donated their time to landscape the rear courtyard. Other vendors on this project include architect Jamie Unkefer; Will Giesey, who donated his time and rebuilt much of the front porch; and Lumber Liquidators, who supplied all of the Bolivian rosewood flooring at half price.
Window Renovation Project in Delaware City
During the winter of 2005 Delaware City Manager Paul Morrill asked us to submit a bid to fix and restore all of the wooden windows in their historic town hall, a project usually reserved for more seasoned contractors. Paul was familiar with The Challenge Program, after watching us build the replica of the Fort Delaware Prisoner Barracks on Pea Patch Island, which is just off Delaware City in the Delaware River.
We decided to restore and/or rebuild all of the windows on the first floor, then move to the second floor in our second phase. There where 34 windows, each three feet wide by seven feet tall, all double-hung, single-pane "three-over-three" glass. For the first floor windows, we decided to restore four as a test so we could come up with a plan to efficiently complete this project.
We looked for something less harsh and destructive than chemical scraping and found Duffy Hoffman, of Hoffman Painting and Refinishing, Inc., located in Pipersville, PA. Duffy, well know for his talents as a historic preservationist and lecturer with the Preservation Trades Network, invited us to bring all 12 windows up to his shop for a "steaming". Duffy is one of a few restoration contractors that owns a "Steam Stripper" that removes paint and glazing from old windows. The Steam Stripper is the size of a pizza oven and can "steam" as many as eight windows at one time. Once removed from the steamer, windows can be easily scraped down to their original wood surface.
With DuffyÔs advice and a little additional research, we set up a window operation at the shop that many restoration contractors would be proud of. We purchased new shaper knives to match the profile of each window sash and mullion, found the appropriate elastomeric and two-part epoxies that we used in the repair of sashes and mullions, and utilized much of our recycled old-growth douglas fir lumber for all replacement pieces.
Once the process was established, our trainees were able to scrape excess paint, remove glass, reprime, and reglaze windows with little instruction or supervision.
Our growth and knowledge during this project has been remarkable. We now know that two part filler epoxies work great for rebuilding damaged mullions and elastomeric epoxy works great for damaged sashes exposed to the elements. We have also become efficient at window glazing. We even cut our own window glass, sized for each window pane. Trainees Marvin and Marlon Johnson (and twin brothers) put the most effort into the project. Both are efficient window repair workers in the shop, and Marvin has a great interest in all of our site work.
Everyone at the Challenge Program is proud of this project. We are grateful to Paul Morrill, and the rest of the staff at Delaware City for their complete support and confidence in our program.
