we can find another chair you have your right here why you come to the table yeah sco over a little bit yeah we can over hello so he's giving us updated phot
this whole thing you bring that microphone around to have another discussion I'm going to raise the issue that we cannot accepts that okay this meeting of the Westport historical commission is called to
order uh members present voting members present uh so we have um more than seven which is our our full quota so Katherine and Katrina you need to decide which of you we' like to vote tonight I'm happy to take minutes if you want to be the
responsible one did you did you watch the okay okay um Timothy did you watch the I did okay great I went down there as well okay yeah what I'm referring to is is that uh in a matter that's continued and there is a matter like
that tonight uh members can only vote if they've watched they're required to to have watched the video of the previous meeting in order to be able to vote so sounds like anybody has satisfied that okay so you're deferring Katherine is is the voting M so voting members present Katherine reer Timothy Bryant Ward
Mooney Garrett stuck deor choli William Kendall Beverly schook and Katrina stroik is an alternate not voting tonight correct okay uh so the only one absent tonight is Caroline Bolter yes okay so
just going to note who's here who's not thank you okay uh first item of business minutes of the uh February 3rd 2025 meeting and um I sent you minutes earlier and and we now have a copy in
front of you any any comments I just have a couple um nothing on page one nothing through number five I have a first comment at number seven whether or not you want to put the actual date you have just certificate issued January 21
I think we should just put 2025 2025 okay and note that that certificate was issued between meetings that's seven and eight and then same for 1838 main road that certificate was issued on February
3rd 2025 and it was issued between meetings okay there's a backstory on that the reason is the applicant did not put the roof shingles on the original applications we had to actually do two applications one for a certificate of applicability for the solar panels
and the second was a certificate of non-applicability for the roof which was the one that was issued so so why don't why don't I um uh okay so so the first one fine I I'll both of them are 2025 uh the first one I think it's okay it
non-applicability approved by chair and clerk so that was outside of commiss um the uh same with the second but I think we could add there that that um the um uh that the previous application or the application for for
uh CA did not include the yeah for ca for solar panels panels did not include [Music] roof okay okay other I have one other on
on the list of attachments we talk about the 1954 Main Road uh continuation to the March meeting and the form was not available for Signature so we had an agreement without the form
okay so the I would say I would put the continuation into the March minutes not not this one we don't didn't have a continuation oh the just the attachment right okay um we had the we had the application but no continuation
and the last one I have is on the last set of documents or attachments this is a repeat should say 1838 Main Road certificate of appropriate appropriateness application and then the next one is certificate of non non
applicability application so two different applications okay they they filed the second one after the fact they attached it to this any other coms changes to the minutes I hear a
motion I move we accept the minutes second um all in favor I I all opposed motion passes unanimously okay next item on the agenda is uh Treasures report there is no
treasurers report this month um then uh we move on to applications for certificate of appropriateness uh so 1954 Main Road uh Josh LEL is here um application for
placing solar panels on various roofs this is a continuation from the February 3rd meeting and again I want to emphasize that the members who were not at that February 3rd meeting have uh declared that they watched the video um I'm not sure I declared that but I I did
watch the video as well um so um so we're all eligible to vote okay um thank you take it away good evening my name is Joshua Bell I'm the new owner of 1954 yeah good evening my name is Josh
Lael I'm the new owner of 1954 main road with my wife who couldn't be here tonight um I want to thank you for the February meeting and for this meeting as well um at the well I'll just say at the outset that um we're very excited about being in the
neighborhood and being uh in the historical commission uh District uh we love the charm of the neighborhood I wrote a letter to everybody which I hope you might have seen um so we're very happy to be here we're also kind of uh eager
to um improve our our house and two of the improvements we're plan to do is to replace the oilbased heating system and then also to add solar power and both of those things are kind of in um you know
in uh syn with the Massachusetts climate reduction uh initiatives and to me it's probably one of the most important things out there in terms of what we all face so we're very eager to do it um we have rooftop power as I said can't be
here tonight so you have to just put up with me but basically in terms of constructing the system we understand understand that we want to kind of minimize the visual impact um in the area and so in that regard we've tried to keep the most of the panels to the
back of the house with solar panels the efficiency is greatly impacted by where they're placed the angle they're placed the direction they're placed and things like that so we happen to have one area that's a a prime location probably the best of all the locations which is that
Dormer excuse me the shed Dormer on the main building um the thing that I like about putting them there besides the increased efficiency is that it's a kind of a coherent rectangle so that I think it'll kind of blend in with the black roof rooftop power as you may have seen from
other installations they've done they try and do a fairly aesthetic job minimizing excuse me any kind of power connections or you know just ugliness basically so that's what we would like to accomplish um I don't know if there's too much more
to say about it we we I think that uh there are other solar installations including our neighbors uh who are here tonight um and it what we're installing is similar to theirs it's not identical obviously every building is different but again in terms of the kind of square
rectangle blending in with the planes of the roof and things like that there's not nothing if you were to look at there's a couple of copies of this um Word document that Garett is uh looking at but they have some pictures from the Street I know uh some people wanted a site visit last time so in that document
there's some pictures of the street um both of our neighbors and then also kind of of what the Dormer looks like you can't see it at all from the front of the house as you move away you get a little bit of an incline but there there will be some visibility
but I think it's pretty minimal and in in the tradeoff of roughly 8 to 10% efficiency I mean if you were going to buy a new furnace or a car and they said well we'll give you this car but take the one that's 10% less efficient you might not feel like that was such a
great idea so that's our our presentation did you want to go over any of the slides that you brought tonight yeah sure um so basically um the the first drawing is I don't know if you can see it or not but that's kind
of just like a a schematic overview of where all the panels are placed and that's kind of the original drawing um and then this is kind of a better picture these black panels uh are the the mockup of where
the panels would sit Josh could you also show the uh oh yeah that the the black panels um are where the black squares where the panels would sit um and this is a a sky view so
again the Dormer is sort of like a this angle here so you'd have to kind of look and see how much you could see them at that kind of angle um then in response to your um the February meeting and some concerns about that Dormer this is a
picture and and I should say also with the original proposal um this bottom picture here is a picture of the garage and the garage is kind of got four triangular slopes so on the slope facing North
which is the least efficient it just had two panels there if they move them off the Dormer in order to generate the amount of electricity we'd like to generate again it would be about 8 to 10% less than they'd like to generate um all the the
panels are taken off of the Dormer and moved to the garage and put on that North Face of the garage so this top picture here with um I'm sorry yeah the top picture of the door is in the upper left here so no panels there and then down in the garage
you can see there's a bunch more panels on the North facing roof um this is that's kind of like the two plans this kind of compares the two plans with the original plan on the left the new plan on the right and some arrows and
things like that so that just kind of clarifies there uh Mr chairman there's a couple of um copies of this document that we might pass around when you say there's a comparison of One Versus the other is that can you point
out which slide shows the before and after terms of your planning those I'll keep this one to the fil going to put it right um so I'm not
sure I'm yeah so so basically if you were to look at that number page p number page four page four okay got it so again the left side is kind of the original plan which is here is the shed
Dormer here correct and then this shows without the shed Dormer having correct and then the bottom of that the left hand side is showing the garage with just the two panels that are at the bottom that's the north facing side and
then the right picture is showing a whole collection of um panels on that garage roof basically there's five panels on the roof of the Dormer they're trying to move those I think they maybe three or four of them over to the
garage okay and then also I think it's important to look at um you can look at um page five if you'd like that's showing a picture of the Dormer um cover with snow an arrow right that's where the dmer is
and that's from this kind of southern end of the house so if you were looking at in the front uh it's not visible so you're saying you're not putting panels there any longer no very much like to and the reason I mean I totally understand the
Aesthetics and and your mission right that's your cor mission to kind of maintain the historical Integrity but we are facing kind of this climate Challenge and so we maximize efficiency
the the other point I want to make is that we're not doing anything to permanently change the house if the climate uh Calamity continues to face us then we probably leave them there but if we invented a new way to approach it
then we take those panels off and you know it wouldn't it wouldn't permanently Mar the structure at all um on page eight is our neighbor and that's taking it again from a little bit further down towards the
point but it's it's kind of hard to see maybe look on your color picture but right here on the roof they got I don't know many panels eight probably something like that 14 they're in a coherent rectangle again this company
can prise themselves on the aesthetic installation so it's they've got a a skirt around it it kind of Blends in with the roof the roof is it's not the roof is red or slate panels I mean it's a different material but they do make an
effort to to make it as traic as possible um so the the rest of the pictures in here again I don't want to take too much of your time but um you know what the garage itself the garage I don't know
you live in the are we have long shot my understanding is the house kind of was in need of some restoration and so that that garage roof is a mess it's living through it's kind of an eyesore so we're getting a new
roof did you put that in your application about the roof I didn't notice that you should add that to the application that you would improve the garage roof because we had to go through a two-step process with the other Palmer family because they didn't put that in there you did not apply for a new roof
which is a CNA not a CA even on the garage but you could put it in as all one application we wouldn't have to do this twice so we can amend your application for that request okay it might actually be better to do a separate SC basically there's an asbest
roof on there so that's a cost to get rid of the asbest it's a cost to replace the structure of the roof which is rotting out replace the signals so I me again we're trying to invest in the house we hope that it's some place that we can sure have for a long time okay so
before the before the commission gets into a discussion I'd like to open the public hearing and uh hear any comments that the public may have U I'm the neighbor would you mind coming to the podium just state your name uh Jonathan Palmer um I live at
1954 Main Ro 58 I'm 58 yes you're 58 box 109 we know your address sorry um and first of all I I'm excited about uh
this whole project going on as you know I'm a big believer myself the garage I sent Josh a picture cuz we actually look at the garage from our bathroom window and and the roof is asbestos falling apart NYS sore having an black
architectural shingle put on redone and you know the black solar panels that are flat um is going to improve the overall look of their property um so again neighbor I it I find the project to be
acceptable in my view um but that's I guess all I'll say to that that thank you other comments just a quick question um the panels that you are putting up are you
putting the skirts on those as well yes cuz I think visuals of you know the skirts on the without the skirts it's night and day they look so much better they BL the the V sorry would you would you just mind stating your name for the record I
mean we just have Matthew 1838 M okay great um the the vendor that's doing this is the same vendor that actually has done both of the P here can you see the panels from the street can you see them yes what did you go to the site
visit yes I did you did okay that's why I'm asking well yes you can just just as you can see uh Mr prom P the street so if you look in in there there kind of if you're standing right in front of the house and you can see the historic plaque if you just replaced then no you
wouldn't see them because they're again they're kind of an incline like this as opposed to an incline like this so if you're standing below it you don't see it if you go down the screen you get to a point where you would perceive it but again from my perspective it again it
picks up that rectangle of the they have to have a a path for firefighters so they can't just like fill up the whole thing but it's a it's a coherent rectangle on a coherent Dormer so I don't know it might not be that
different than if we put a big Skylight there okay so get it any other comments from the public okay then I'm going to officially close the public hearing part of this uh session which doesn't mean that we can't hear more comments from the public it
just means that this part has been officially thank you taken care of um so Josh you're welcome to stay at the podium might have have other questions I I do have one question about the new proposed sizes of the rev the revision
the comparison of the old to the new do we know it the original size was 12 kilowatt correct or the last part of the question uh I know the original proposal you provided the commission was for a 12
kilowatt system do you know what the change is you know what the revision would be for the um I do I it's going from about um 13 I thought I had that in here but it's going from about 13.2 to about 12.1 can I clarify because we had
this question come up and we did talk about how they were moving the panels from the shed Dormer to another lesser building was what we thought we were ready to approve at the last meeting we thought that the shed Dormer was a little too visible and also on the main
building corre and I'll I'm going to explain that in a minute because I that that's an important distinction that's important the um difference that he's referring to about the change in wattage kilowatt was that he would lose about 8% by going to a less less south-facing
yeah roof but still the same number of panels just in a different location light available to them but I want to raise a different point and I think we talked about this extensively at the last meeting so I'd like to just re bring it bring everybody back up to
speed on how we decided to do the Palmer array they had requested an array and we finally concluded after doing site visit and a lot of discussion that their house had a configuration which had a lower
roof from the main roof and that's how we were able to justify it was not the prominent part of the building where the panels would be located so at your right when you see it from a distance it sort of Blends in it's a lesser roof it's a less prominent roof and we were okay
with them doing that they agreed to do a dark roof and it Blended in and we came up with the sort of protocol that if an array was going to be put on that would we could live with it if it was on a lower like an L to a building or a garage buing or something that was just
not the main house when we talked to you last time we talked about the shed Dormer as being part of the main main house and frankly the pictures that you supplied to us were very difficult for us to be able to see this
perspective this is the perspective when you're about 20 or 30 ft from your home looking up the hill you can easily see every inch of that roof and it's part of the main house do you think it's an original part when it was conct we're
not going to go there right now but let me just say that that is the main house M and we tried to describe to you that our protocol that we're trying to develop here so that people can put solar on their homes and not wreck the entire iconic image of the historic
district because that's what we're worried about bill has been very eloquent in other meetings talking about how we have these great beautiful historic homes yours is a very old home and it's one of the most visible on the point people will see it up and down the
point so I thought we had discussed this with you last time when you came up with your letter and you sent us a letter we all got copies of this letter I distributed it to the entire commission and you talk about how you lose 8% of your array well that means you get 92% of
it you lose eight out of 100 that's 92% and that you know to to my mind we're coming a long way to approving your panels at 92% of what you had requested I I take EX ception to the Dormer I
think it's a very visible part of your home it will be visible to anyone walking up and down that point and it's part of the main structure that was our argument to you but you wanted to still continue this discussion and here we are again
the site visit that we had because the pictures that were originally produced were from Google Maps and from a very distorted image of the home and I don't I I I don't think it was on purpose but it certainly
wasn't useful for the Commissioners to try to understand what it would look like with panels so we had to do a site visit that was very clear and I think the Commissioners now can see that at least I can see this shed Dormer is extremely visible and part of the main
part of the house it's not on a lower L and that's the issue so I'm going to leave it to others to discuss well just I just back to the um the U February hearing
um the main thing was the the main thing was the Dormer and also the fact that it according to your installer is raised 4 in and so we have this not only sitting
on top of this but we've got it sitting 4 in I just clarify but 4 in is about like this whatever my phone is about 4 in yeah that's I mean but that's what you see so that was one of the other things that of course with solar panels they they are installed that way and so
you would if it was a let's say it was a solar solar shingle or something it would sit flat on the roof whereas this is 4 in and he was going to also um scroll down was one other thing well anyway instead of put a skirt on and at
that time I didn't realize what I did go on the site visit and I I was a to see that it's clearly visible from the main road and I must say the house is very very quite a wonderful house it's design wise this perfect wonderful house uh and
I think that that would be something that would be quite in congruous on that um structure so Josh I mean as as you know this is a really tough problem for historical commissions and U this uh and then theck of the there
are a lot of other commissions who've adopted a similar policy to the one that that we've developed which is to keep to allow solar panels because you know the I mean as as you included in your letter the state encourages us to um to allow
solar panels in some sense um to allow solar panels but but also to keep them off of the main roofs ideally just on out buildings um or in some cases uh as as in the Palmer's house on a on a subsidiary roof
that's set back from the street and um that seems to be a pretty reasonable compromise I mean there are you know there are there are people on this commission who think we shouldn't have any solar panels at all in the historic district um and then there are there are others who you know have a
more lenient view but I I think what we've achieved is is a reasonable compromise and we have a few test cases where I think it's worked out pretty well and um I think I think your Dormer is just highly visible and I and I and I think
in a way that I mean if if it were um I mean it's it's almost going to be more visible because it's on a dormer it would be a little patch more prominent of little patch of of different color black shinier than the rest of the roof um very visible from the street I mean
right now you can you can drive up or walk up main road and you won't see any solar panels most most of it I mean if you stop in front of the Palmer's house and and look down the yard yeah you'll see it but if you if you look up up the street at the
at the nice streetcape you're not going to see any solar panels um it's not so much the visibility it's the which roof is it on that's the issue here well but that's I that go the visibility is diminished because it's on a lower roof
a lesser building that's the point we're trying to make I mean just I I don't want you to think I'm ignoring everything you're saying and obviously you have a great deal of power over me but um lesser lesser building so to go to the garage we have to put a trench in it
has complications with septic pipes and things like that so that's an extra investment we're doing because I I don't want to ruin the historic nature of the house either that would that would be tragic right why would we buy a house like that and then make it into a mcmansion or do something silly but that's that's what sort of confuses me
because you make such an eloquent argument for not putting solar panels up to keep so I mean there many planes to the roof right it's got a there's like probably 10 different facets to the roof so we understand and we also you know we
also understand the climate crisis I mean we live on the water we we are acutely aware of the climate crisis I think solar is wonderful not in an historic district and I think you know there are a lot of ways to save energy you know unplugging lights turning them
off you know a number of things you can do besides just solar panels and as Deborah said if this is only 8% you're losing 8% of the efficiency of it yeah I I don't it's more than % the numbers not us you told us it was 8% so
we're just repeating it back to you 8% then you're getting 92% of your original plan that's just math so I'd like to I'd like to hear from some of the other members of the commission well looking at the rail configuration it's it's going to be above that uh roof about
this much so the the it's a three and 38 for the rail ra and then one one 1.2 in for the panel I mean my my suggestion is the mockup so everyone just this is 8
and2 so that's 4 and a qu right here but it's going to you you are going to see it from the street and it is exactly going to be reflective and it might what we're looking at these two dimensional images here uh it's going it's going to sit up and you're going to see the
shadow line on the top of it so I mean I I don't think it's great you're not altering the historic fabric of the building but you are adding this to the to the area if there's another area to put it I think it would be preferable the secondary area so I'm not sure if I
fully understand why you can't put more on the garage well the the garage is four triangular planes so they just don't fit and plus you don't want to put one yeah facing into the tree into the
neigh can you go around your septic system instead of trenching over it well it's not actually trenching over it's just crossing the the streams basically I mean I I think over the garage is uh much more preferable yeah yeah I'm sorry to interrupt you we're
definitely putting them over the garage that's part of the I mean we're trying I again I totally agree with your mission and that we want to keep it a historic building I mean I mean these these things are a fact of life though so question is how do you how do you
reconcile that with the nature of the historic commission or the historic district I wouldn't want I have historic house I wouldn't want to put that system on the front of my house either I'd want to put it somewhere you don't see and I have a carriage house with faces South
it would go over there and I that's what I would do so I'm sort of I'm with the Commissioners um I think you're going to see it more than we actually realize just because of its profile so in a condition like this I would make a
mockup of it and photograph it we I mean we effectively have a mockup because the same system is installed on the house yeah okay it's a lower it's a lower elevation mod lower elevation you're not going to see it on joh yeah yeah but I mean conceptually I'm not opposed to the
idea of putting on a shed Dormer but you know if it's really that visible I I went down and looked at it but I I didn't walk down the street so that picture there this is the perspective yeah it's it's see the profile the profile of this roof you're going to be 4 in above that you're going to see a
shadow line all the way around the edge of it it's going to be the other piece I think we should mention is that one of the key features of your house is is is this Koopa Koopa here sure and which your eyes AC and Drawn to and part of the challenge of putting this panel
right on the Dormer is that's right in the sight line of looking up you're not I naturally drawn in this property one of the very special things that L my whole life is is the way your house the aspect of your house and that Koopa it's very special I strongly recommend
against putting solar panels on that Dormer because of that very iconic sight line I think will be um it'll be hard to ignore in the same way that the Palmer's house by putting them on a a sub sort of Sub sub building in a way
um we were able to navigate in a way that I think it came out quite well with this property I think you really do have to keep those panels off the the primary um structure of the roof and also it's worth mentioning the precedent that we would
be setting by allowing it on the Dormer because the next people that come before us and say well 1954 was allowed a dormer yeah understand those is I think that each case is considered
individually that we aren't supposed to set precedence or whatever but trying to the guidelin right but I think our guidelines we have guidelines and we spoke about them and our guidelines very clearly state that you know we will accept solar panels on you know
diminutive roof not on the main roof and unfortunately I mean it's it's a beautiful beautiful home but the roof line the only place you can put it it's on the main roof if if your addition wasn't an you know the L part it wasn't
an addition and it was the main roof it wouldn't have gotten approved either I mean it's just that your roof line allows you to do that and unfortunately yours doesn't and it's a it's a it's a drag but it's I just want to clarify that we do
not yet have written guidelines on on this matter but but we are we have developed I think a consistent we spent quite some time at the last meeting discussing it and outlining and maybe it's not a separate document yeah but we will I mean that's one of the
matters we'll take up soon is is to actually put that into our official you know the other um thing I want to raise Mr LEL is the fact that you know we agree that over time technology changes and you have to be you have to adapt to it so maybe at some point in the future
the so-called solar shingles that are in development and we've had had a couple of meetings here showing um and learning about solar shingles they're just not quite there yet they're they're probably for your future of solar on that part of your house perhaps that's something you
should continue to Monitor and maybe someday there will be a solar shingle that we could accept that would not have the profile issues that this application would have with solar panels so as technology develops there may be a time that many roofs will have solar shingles
if they're acceptable looking we just don't know and we continue to monitor that so I wouldn't give up hope on the solar for that part of the house but it's not there today MH right did you have any comments I took a site visit and um I understand
what we're all about and um we you know we discussed maybe just putting the panels on the garage but I don't think that works and I I agree with my colleagues okay we are putting them on the garage
just to clarify what you're if I if I heard you correctly so the P there panels on the back side of the house and on the garage yeah and there'll be more on the garage because we're taking off the Dormer and trying to achieve simil more results at the site
visit at the site visit noted that um the garage is also visible from a public way uh but that's a situation which is perfectly acceptable to us the garage is visible from the public
way as well and we're allowing that because it's a lesser building it's fits within our guideline that we're trying to develop and with the black roof and well trying to find some reasonable
compromise right you know I mean I I wish that we weren't facing the climate disaster and I wish sea level wasn't rising and you know wasn't threatening all of our homes they may not be here in it won't be seller won't be an issue because
it'll be underwater anyway so well hopefully not we're trying to we're trying to avert that but yes thank you okay so I just want to CL clarify what what the options are here so so um there's the option you presented which which is um to have the panels on the
shed doorer uh and uh and the roof uh the garage roof rather um and then you've discussed an alternative which is to um not have the panels on the shed uh but to have additional panels on
the um garage Ro correct okay at the last meeting the contractor who was here made an adjustment to the spec and crossed out the shed Dormer panels and removed them over to this
location and we were somewhat I think close to getting to a vote at that point and then we tabled it and did the continuing so this is the last proposal that your contractor was able to identify on the actual application so
that's one option okay so um yeah so procedurally I I guess um I guess we could so I don't want to hear any motions yet I I just I just want to you know clarify what what's possible here so um we could vote on your on the
on the plan that you desire um we could vote on the alternate plan um what would you like us to do I mean we could do yeah I think we might as well go on record just taking two votes okay so uh do I hear a motion
to approve the original plan with the with the solar panels on the shed Dormer uh there's no such motion so uh that plan is denied do I hear a motion to deny sorry okay motion to deny
thank you I second that motion okay uh let's do a who roll call vote who Moved Bill move toy to deny cat second okay so we'll do a roll call vote Beverly ship deny William Kendall deny
de choli deny Garen stuck deny Wy deny Timothy Bryant deny C deny okay so uh that application is denied um now do I hear a motion to uh
accept the alternate plan does the homeowner want us so the homeowner proposes the alternate plan I think you you agree that we should we could vote on yes absolutely okay okay um so uh do I hear a motion to accept the alternate
plan uh which has no solar panel on the shed Dormer um but additional panels on the north side of the garage roof uh as indicated in in the drawings that we have I move to accept that plan as uh contemplated by
the contractor and documented on this spec I second okay still a roll call vote Beverly shook I William Kendall ey debor chofi ey gar stuck ey Ward booney ey Timothy Bryan I
I okay the alternate plan is approved thank you very much I'd like to add though to your application that you will propose to or we can do a separate application on the garage roof would be
replaced with a dark colored roof same as the house same as the house same as the house yes so should we do a CNA for that yeah so so do you know do you know do you know the detail of of that do you know if there's going to be any I mean will you be replacing facia boards
gutters uh anything besides just I don't think there are currently any facial boards or gutters on the on the structure but the structure of the roof itself the wood is is rotted through so that the wood will be replaced and
then the same materials on the roof yeah so so we'll need a we'll need an application uh for certificate of non- applicability if if it's it's if it's really just reshingling um or uh a certificate of
appropriateness uh if it requires uh additional work on the roof and uh I think we can wave the wave the fee for that if you um need to come back for certificate of appropriateness there's no fee for the certificate of not applicability need to wait for the next
hearing for approval of a CNA that's right right so if you if it's just if it's notability for the roof and materials and color that can be approved between meetings between meetings oh it can okay great sub paper and it can be
cler and the chair have the authority to approve that right um if the um fascia board has to be replaced and it was a like for like does that require a public hearing no uh not if not if we consider
it to be um like for like it would be eligible for a certificate of non-applicability so we need to assign monitors and we need to sign the off on these plans so I can issue the certificate okay monitors who wants to monitor
this you want to monitor cat Okay cat's been a monitor a monitor Beverly okay Beverly and Cat are the monitors and do you want to sign this plan this is going to go into the certificate Bill do you want to sign the
plan we need three right I thought you need four four you want four be I'll okay okay that's thank you thank you so much for your time thank you okay okay the uh the next item on the
agenda application for demolition permit at 253 Adamsville Road uh I did not receive the permit I I was told that it would be forthcoming but did not receive it so uh that item is um we're going to pass on that item
tonight um so is that a which is stricken from the agenda it's we haven't received an application yet yeah I put it there because I thought there were gon to be submitting an application it is yeah yeah and um I should just mention bill and I went by to see that property so they they want
to demolish a barn yes and it's the barn in the back in front of the yes anyway Bill Bill and I have been to have been to see that property when we get an application if we get an application we
can just to say a word about it um it is what it is probably the original bar and go that goes with this 1820 house very important structure uh it is uh beautifully framed post and beam
it's the it's the real thing I can see wow okay oh okay I know right PR from Sodom Road right yeah by um okay so we're um a shame we're moving on all the way to General
business uh monitors reports I don't think we have anything I don't have anything new I don't know so so Bill and I visited 2038 Main Road bill would you like to to report well we had a meeting with the
architect and the contractor uh and um we went through well the outside of the house and discussed some issues and changes in the trim meaning the corner boards and uh
the fascia boards uh which was agreeable minor change so we could make that um decision there uh and we were also given a uh a tour of the interior of the house um
and the question was how long it was taking well I don't know why it is taking so long but we do know why we do know that the interior of the house sadly was very much
deteriorated and that was quite surprising I I'm talking about an oak frame that was riddled with either carpenter ants or termites or both uh and it just was something to think about on Westport
Point uh I don't think I've ever seen a building that has been that ravaged by these insects um I mean you have a an oak Timber which is a summer beam it runs down the center of the room and it looks great on the
outside on the inside it's Hollow so structurally they've had to really reinforce everything and it's taken a lot of time and I might add a lot of money to do all that so um and and I and I would
just add that that you know this is the kind of thing you don't discover all at once and then fix all at once I mean they keep discovering um did they have any evidence of that in the out building that they raised by one foot the
building that was raised by one foot um again looking at it had the same problem okay so yeah and have we seen any properties another one that been redone on the address would be opposite side of the street a couple doors down
that was Rec the big renovation recently um do we have any other reports of any similar degradations to the building Integrity you know no and the house right to the north of 2028 38 is um by an architect also and
he showed me his he is a beam in the center of the living room 1775 I think it is you know the main state of the house and it is in perfect condition yeah yeah I just don't know yeah in in my house when we renovated it uh there was powder post powder post
Beetle damage to the peak of the roof okay I mean there were there were floor joist that were collapsed I mean it was um jeez and and we actually the historical the historical commission allowed us to demolish the back part of our house I don't know if anybody here
was on and was that also deteriorated by post beetles yes and the and the and the floor joy had had collapsed the back part of the house had pulled away from the rest of the house so I mean it was um yeah so so um you know I just a second what what bill was saying I mean
they they they have spent a lot of time doing you know the best they can there uh and uh they're you know they're they're ref refurbishing some of the windows they're they're um having you
replica Windows made uh they've left things in place that um you know questionable whether they really needed to be left in place but um anyway I think they've they've done a great job they're doing a great job it's taken a lot of time and um I think in the end
it's it's going to be a very satisfactory um very very nice outcome on the inside of that house it has [Music] um chimney breast wall you know around the chimney a beautiful raised paneling
it also in the same room and this is the front room has a wonderful Corner coverboard 18th century corner coverboard and in the bedroom upstairs it also has a chimney breast with wonderful raised paneling that's all intact and stays there the fireplaces
have all been carefully um re not they haven't been touched uh but they've been reinforced in the cellar and also repared up in the in the chimney so that's been preserved yeah so I mean just to
summarize I I think I think uh the project is going well it has taken a lot of time but uh I think they're doing a good job and and uh will continue to do a good job and uh I I actually um the owner called me he was quite upset at some of the things that were said at the
um so the J it was the January meeting um and you know there were there were personal attacks there was speculation about the owner's motives uh and uh I just want to
um uh just want to remind the commission that you know that's not it's not professional to to say those things and and uh it's not our role to speculate and um uh you know sort of question personal integrity of uh people who are doing the
projects so okay any other monitors reports not at this okay um so there's one we have a presentation coming up uh in just a few minutes um but there's one other thing I wanted to mention and that
is that um I received a request this afternoon from uh Laura ol chair of the Westport Point United Methodist Church and she is asking us the historical commission to um submit a macis entry
for the how and Hall Community Center um and uh certainly think we can do that I I don't think we need to vote on it um but just wanted to let you know and I I will unless unless anyone objects I will work with her to um try
to get that submitted Okay so um now we have a uh a presentation by Nathaniel Allen on preservation and restor restoration of antique Windows uh I've been looking forward to this a lot I think Bill's been looking forward to it I apologize
we don't have a larger audience but you are going to be recorded and and we are going to um maybe we can take a few minutes to make sure you get set up for the optimal recording help we're have to set up up here we want to make sure we get a photograph
clearly of that area that's great so is there a camera that that uh okay way get that chair out of this is great that you got him to come in nice tool boox have to put on the
show yeah if few slides over here more is this table kind of cuts oh you're up there okay yeah you want yeah good [Music] good if you shift over this way a little
you'll be able to see more the bottom CU this HS the bottom the camera camera up here all right um I have some um some clamps I can just I can stand up on the table I or one appropriate
anyway so what are you going to doel you're going to U put I'm take a minute it's been a second since I've done any public speaking but um after that I'm going to introducing now then yeah okay
um we have here uh Nathaniel Allen who's a house um Nathaniel grew up in Westport and his father was David Allen and you might know David Allen because he was a
well-known photographer uh and did a lot of photography of historic houses uh documenting um the Palmer farm for one thing and I think he did some graphs of your house Tim yeah and the hick Hicks
Farm yeah is that right yeah um they're a great archive and he also did the uh the town Farm too so yeah the town Farm as well right so anyway um now Nathaniel
has a business which is called NR a restoration in NDA NDA okay in uh South
dland his um just have his resume here he is he went to the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth got a Bachelor's degree in sculpture uh then he went to the North Bennett Street School which had gave him
two years and a certificate in uh pres preservation carpentry we worked for the Beacon Hill restoration company uh and then also at that point went on to establish this company here in South Dartmouth he's a specialist in
stabilization of Restoration Timber framing seal work design and construction of timber frame buildings res restoration and reproduction of doors windows and miscellaneous architectural
elements he also did the restoration of the powder house which is at the head and uh that project was overseen by or sponsored by the Westborn historical
commission okay that's that's probably enough time y so I apologize if I Stumble over my words or anything but um Bill said Nathaniel I work on antique does this
you speak into that Mich um and so um Bill's been asking me for a while to come in and um speak with you all um if you clip that on she'll be able to is this stand is the mic working with
the stand um so Bill's been asking me for you don't need that for a while to um come in and just um I guess familiarize the board with just the uh the Dynamics
of an antique window um and with a specific focus on um sort of the serviceability um and can they see that now the whole window no it has to either be over that way or up on the table
oh yeah that's goodair um this talk is being uh filmed and will be archived so we'll be able to refer to this meeting when we have our discussions of Windows which are quite frequently
discussed um so I I don't I'm open to any sort of guidance on this um but uh a brief um just sort of introduction to this just the object you know earlier on they just started off as uh trly just um openings um you know in
side walls of buildings um evolved into a more casement style window um that and that dominated until about the end of the um uh 17th century when somebody developed the sash style window of which this is um a uh an example
um and um largely all of those early windows were applied to the exterior of the building um so all of your GLA glazing was simply attached um to the sheathing which would come in right about here um and um we're all familiar with the way a
window Works anyway especially this type you know the lower sash is generally referred to as a um uh double hung window but more specifically this is a single hung um in that the upper stash is fixed into the
jam the joinery of the jam and it is only the lower unit that actually functions um it's not until the really the mid 19th century that uh it evolves into the more um Bo what's called a box frame um which perforates the envelope
of the building and is built out of smaller Dimension uh material uh on by stock and both of those sash uh would be fully operable you know the upper one goes down and vice versa from the bottom
um and I guess Anatomy um is fairly straightforward once you familiarize yourself with it the whole unit is a window um as I stated the uh you know it's a single hung unit um this is the
frame these are the stash um uprights are um sometimes referred to as Styles and then you have a head and a sill and then within the sash themselves um you have
styles rails and then uh mountains um a lot of times the terminology U Mullan is used for um for that uh particular component but it's inaccurate that's more of a a hold over for from um uh
casement style units which a lot of times were two frames or one and a half frames really where there'd be uh one unit on the left a center unit and next year and then a third element here the center um style will be
referred to as a a Mullan um they're mold together they're sort of joined um but so there are no mullions in sash um and um a lot of times the failures
are um brought on by just fatigue and material um you can see a lot of different opportunities for water to collect um especially true um is at the bottom of the
uh the unit here U water will run down the the lower s and get trapped up against this Joiner um and rot out the sill um when I move on to um some of the next steps I
can explain some of the um um design features that were intended to uh mitigate that solution but um over time um too much uh paint is applied um in those various areas and uh dams up um
the uh the part that would ordinarily release the water um but uh feel like I'm rolling through a lot of things that I intended to talk about but you expand on that a little bit how it would normally drain out then
would there be a little Le hole or how would that work the paint piled up yeah um [Music] bottom this pen is on the same plane as the uh the stash themselves and so that
little element I'm hold this in make it a little easier um this element here it will make a little bit more sense when I explode the front um really is beyond that joint at the bottom um so water running straight
down should be able to run out the bottom of that joint there um gravity just um and then we out the bottom of the sill um but subsequent paint jobs um and especially
uh um some improper paint jobs include um painting um this element here um which is intended to uh be a wood to wood connection um too much build up on the back side of that and cause some
issues with the your s sets as well just a question about so where the style meets the the sill I imagine a lot of painters would would caul that oh yeah and that that just hastens the issue that's you know a couple centuries of paint will do the exact same thing
and then yes so so that's really the part that really deteriorates the rest of is pretty much stable the most part yeah another another area that's fairly similar to this but does not have the same drain um would be here at the
bottom of the upper upper sash um but there's just no real way around that without over complicating the system but that's a place that could be easily be repaired whereas this down here is something that has to be and what you see here on my particular
example is um just these sash are U reproduction from the early 20th century whereas this is an early 19th century and the S simply were made in the factory and not measured as thoroughly as one might like so I just added those
to get everything sit tightly how old are these windows um well these are from the early 20th century the sash are but the frame itself is from my house I think it's somewhere around 1810 and for those with storm windows on their this one doesn't have but the
primary source of failure ping over we of and there are issues with um storm windows as well um you know you have you have the issue with an exterior storm window is um when you have a an
interior window or just your simple window um is a little too drafty and hasn't been tuned well enough too much paint on the bottom and it can't quite close so you have a draft there um sometimes just a little bit of that
ring warm air from the interior will come out and condense the moisture will condense in the back side and not only is that bottom wheat pole that was originally designed there but now you have a gasket that the pains will come along and um on your storm U storm
window as well and again they do even triple track systems will have little wheat holes but those get painted very quickly and if they don't get painted they get filled with dirt and debris very quickly as well um when the windows were originally designed um when you
threw up the sash um was there anything that kept the sash up R in some very uh high-end examples um a lot of times the back side of the uh the jam would be hollowed out um and there' be a
a single Sash on each side that went up to a sheath that was typically out of fruitwood um and U they're pretty rare um so it's very typical to when you open your window you need to prop prop it open with
something stick on their own right there were no springs or balances or even those weights that came in in the Victorian period these windows do not have yeah weight Victorian the Springs were what what are
spring start in the 19th century but I my assumption is the reason that these sty this particular style of window was called a sash was that the original version of them did actually have a sash that went you know up and over so um this would just be a sort of a a budget
version of the same thing um is that from a home in Westport or it is this is true yeah must be pretty cold so we've done mild functionality a little brief history
um some basic anatomy of the unit um I guess I could break it down I guess on the wait wait break it down then um I just want to point out that you see how thick that is that's why you see on the point the windows are projecting out
it's Ines or so they project out from the wall it's called it's a function of the construction of the actual building so it's called a plank frame yeah and it's attached to the wood sheathing on the outside of the building whereas uh
the post and beam uh structure is uh sheathed with Oak planks whereas the weight and chain type ones that you see are put on stud stud walls instead so they have a thickness to them so these were attached from the outside of the building or from the inside of the
building to a hole that was cut in the oak planking on the outside of the building so something like the handy house or some of these other ones uh were that period so they had 1 in thick Oak planks basically that stabilized created a sort of a membran not a
membrane but a but a diaphragm if you will and then these were just nailed on I mean and that was it shingles on the outside maybe some something to stop the wind from blowing through the cracks and then on the inside uh was a LA and
horse plaster and newspaper and that was that was the wool section yeah um there are some throughout the history there are some um elements to keep out the wind uh this particular unit um they bypassed this flange here um you would
have typically had a uh maybe a wooden clapboard or even just stacked up shingles that would fit into that Groove and the the sheathing would be back here so that would um you know any wind or rain be deflected by um what we now have
flames on Modern Windows um and uh but this one also had um uh on some of the windows the South and the West Wall I believe um there was a little bit of O that was tapped onto the backside before they put it up on the
wall before you take that apart is going to take that apart actually this unit um probably came in pieces and then was assembled on the site now um did you turn that upside
down I just want to show you something this is a window head up here but you see it's the Spade head which is a replica of a keystone from the Renaissance uh Roman and Renaissance Italian architecture so it's a replica of something was made out of
stone um okay so I just want to show you something else from my collection I'm going to put that on top of the the bottom okay because that's where it it won't go on there very well okay
so this this is a a weather cap of this is 19th century which you see on the point I don't think see many of these this is 18th century this is one big piece of
wood in fact this piece of wood was so big it goes from there up to there and then is uh worked with planes or whatever and this piece of wood here is is the flashing rather than a metal flashing it
becomes the flashing itself I think a little piece of that's broken off but and that's the molding that goes under it so that thing set up in a 1750 house so that's the difference between what you have
here and the earlier design and this is an actual replica of of of an 18th century molding right there so a decorative feature which you which is quite quite strong and don't see very
often uh I got this out of a dumpster from 1750 house that was having vinyl sighing put on it and was it that prominent it would almost be a little awning over the window was that it was that prominent over the that was a style
that was a style for two story houses so you see this on many's houses but it's a for that Hefty design feature uh then I just again for Michael and I'm donating this of course to you great this this is a reproduction
the window he sash he's showing here is a new sash but this is reproduction of a of of a 1750 window now what he has here is a federal window so let's just show the difference between that heess I
this it's the mutton size that really is the difference there is a 1750 and that's the um 1800 1790 um as you can this is a
reproduction made out of uh Eastern Pine you can see it's made exactly the same way uh and this is a 1in mutton bar whereas that's probably a what 58 5/8
mutton bar that's a very different different design element in the earlier houses made the same all all Morse and Tenon all put in with little wooden pegs okay good I'm
done you need help taking that apart just going to take it apart so you can see how it was constructed um and also just show how easy it is to break down um even just the the simple thing for painting you know um we're all of this painters too
or want to paint everything in place or not not do any anything we don't have to do so everything gets painted shut and everything so there should be no paint anywhere where uh wood slides against wood except for that obviously but that
just gets worn out over time um these are the interior stops your interior trim would come in either splayed like that or flatten the wall um and those typically would just slide out of a deser spot um your extension Jam would extend
down into here to create another weather gasket um and same thing with your stool down at the bottom um or your s to some people but um it's all just sort of about confusing the air
and but for the sake of this demonstration I have a screw them in we I spent a long time talking about proportions of the windows and the fact that these older Windows like the fever window uh is very slight it's not heavy
it's not doesn't have the heavy meeting rail that you would see on these uh the modern windows and so we've been careful to allow only when we do allow a modern window in the district to follow these
proportions meeting rail is a very important well the glass was sold as a standard size so the windows were shaped to meet the glass supply 6 by 8 7 by 10 yeah um so that's how easy it is to take
the bottom sash out um when it's not painted shut and then same thing for the top it should have a little bit of um extra space where you can lift up just a little bit and then just hinge it out um and at what at this point then
you can treat um the edges they should always be bare like that so do you do you oil the edges or um I do um part of my restoration anyway I'm not it's it's not entirely clear whether or not that was always the treatment um
but um I've seen it in early uh building documents um but they have to be a lot of times they're specifically called out um in the um the contracts um not to say that people wouldn't just do it of their own accord but and like a tongue oil or
um I use tongue oil most of the time um it doesn't has a tendency to not oxidize quite as much as uh linseed oil does um but more traditionally it would have been L seed oil most likely raw but
um and anyway so talking about the some of the areas you know we talked about the sill being one of the areas where uh Rock can occur um another area is at the top of the U uh you know where
the top of the style kind of meets water can Wick into there and then once it gets into there it starts deteriorating the material um I did have to make a quick repair to the bead here that was mainly because uh the storm windows were taken off in haste before I had gotten
there so that had been snapped off so um most repairs um I like to do a a mechanical repair as opposed to a glued repair um much like uh we were talking about dissimilar materials and condensation points um the introduction
of uh glue adds another element um and even though you've taken out the rotten wood and put in new wood um that point um in need even if you're using similar material that point of contact UM the two materials like materials can no
longer transfer moisture um between one another so uh a screw um is preferable um it's also reversible um which is nice in world of preservation so um because not only does technology
change but uh philosophies change as well so um the easiest repairs are always done on the bench but there are certain things that um uh don't allow that um a seill repair is really difficult when you're in place
uh when the window is in place um we talked about the installation of these units and the upper three components are all in the exterior of the building um but you can see here um this little
lip um that perforates the building plane um and so you can't um without removal of the window you can't properly remove the sill um um but that's not to say that things
can't be done in place um they just have to get a little crafty um and so the treatment that this one was given um back in my shop was I knocked these four pins out these are obviously Replacements um very nice and bright but
um [Music] um and this the pins of the uh intersections of these are a little bit more complicated than just putting uh the T in a mortis and then drilling a hole and driving a pin um
they drawboard um be able to could probably illustrate a little bit better but um basically you have a hole in a Tenon and you have the hole in the U the mortise piece and they're offset slightly so that when the the pin goes through it tries to connect the two like
sized holes um and puts the The Joint into compression and keeps it nice and FID a lot of times that gets fatigued with age now keep in mind all of this is done with hand tools or chisels and so you're
starting with this stocked big piece of wood it has to be which is roughs on it has to be hand plan and these mes you can see have to be chiseled out I'm not sure what best thing is to
do with these but now you can see a little bit better how um water could come down and then the bottom of that because these two are and then because the you know this is
um these M stop you know they're exposed would otherwise be exposed to the weather whereas on the sill it's expected that water will collect until it's wide open on the bottom so can Retreat another area that um even though
it's not collecting water necessarily in a good design um it still is um end grain here um and so water will weep in um and deteriorate the frame um but if you pass them around they're quite sophisticated so are you using the same
material to repair them in most situations yes I found that to be problematic well I I knew materials was going to come and um Tim's talking about viability of continuing to use pine and so I would say from a commercial
perspective it's not the viability is it's the it's the amount of how quickly they rot out well that's grow rings and it is obviously a material failure but I also think it's a Artisan failure um and
uh if you don't know the material well enough um then I think you can run into that and so when you're redoing an entire house um it is difficult and that's why I say it's not necessarily commercially viable I think should all be soaked in Wood penetrating resin like
a boat uh type of resin which will then protect the cellular structure that's part of the reason I do treat most of the frames yeah I mean because it's it's really if you spend all this money building a frame and then the water gets in there it will rot that out in very very
quickly and you have another problem there is a a new wood the AOA which is a um it's a it's a wood but it's been put into some kind of pressure treatment with chemicals or whatever and it it it
it will not move it's almost like plastic or something and it will not rot and so it's stable and it's used in Windows reproduction windows are done made out of a coin I think it's also worth pointing out that these this window here is 700
years old um and anything available portion of the market today you're lucky if you can get maybe 40 years out I mean many many fail the two points fail for 10 years or 15 years certainly 20 um so I I think
it's it's worth just pointing out the durability of the design properly maintaining and working hard to restore our existing windows that have in the district uh at all at all at all costs
instead of Replacements that's been our philosophy so far the sashes are very important and the old glass is very important uh he has some old glass there and you can see the what we're talking about the Wess of
the glass uh and even the color you notice is different than the glass and some PS will be have a different color than other they do make they do make um restoration glass and sometimes when you buy glass
it's the restoration glass is new it becomes too exaggerated so you got to watch out because it has to be just see right there you think this is waving say this is wavy oh uh Define
wavy see that yeah no that's the only wavy I well it's hand hand blown right so the way see how th it is and then if you if you look across there a couple of techniques of making
the glass the You' see the Bull's eyes in Windows so they would spin that and make a giant dish and then they would cut the sections out of that and use a bull's eyes as a waist part in window sometimes or the way they make uh restoration glass now is they they spin
along cylinder um sometimes has more air so it's got heavily seated so the air goes into the glass or lightly seated you have small pieces but it's a very different sort of technique but then they they put that uh they'll score a
line down down it and they'll heat it and then that falls out onto a large sheet and then they cut it into sections so finding actual wavy glass and the the old style is is not that not that easy so fellow that worked on my house
actually collected old windows that were being thrown out so it's all that wavy glass you'll see and it's so Charming when the sunlight comes through it you just get all these beautiful waves that you don't see in Modern Glass I agree also we have here a window
that's been exposed to the weather for 200 some years and look at the condition that would be that would last hundreds of years if it's painted if you let the paint off of that if it wears off and you don't paint it you end up
what you can see over there the weather weather P or too much pain the durability of the wood though is based on the fact it's old growth material right so it's a lot more dense it's true well it's the ultraviolet light that really gets the
wood once you got that paint on there it protects it can we talk briefly to um uh awful ways to do smaller repairs on maybe you know we're talking scarfing joints is it preferred or it better to use variations if you do have to do some
work on them most people use uh epoxy right West system or anything like that that's the easiest way to do it but I think that's good for the record to say that you can do small you can do repairs you can do topical repairs too much epoxy creates
yeah it kicks the same problem down the road a little too far but um but yes um I try always to have uh weather in mind um like this uh uh repair to the Tenon um it's I hollowed out the bottom of
this um so I was trying not to let any of the uh any of the Tenon um repair be exposed directly to the weather and if it does you should always create the same water shed that they um had in mind um so if there were you know a scarf bottom it would be down in the way that
would be better down out exterior that kind of thing I have a sash here um that most of the time would be thrown out um I didn't have any significant parts to replace um in this window here but
um just to give you an idea of how quickly it is how quick it is to turn a a window around or you know any is just how serviceable they are um most people would and these people did um throw this window to the
street um and for the most part you know all the Joiner is intact the glass is holding it fairly rigid um but everything everything is there um with the exception just of this one particular style it must been a
beautiful 12 12 yeah um if I can B please excuse the concussion for just a minute so just like the uh plank frame um it's just JW board um
it helps to understand the uh the construction or assembly process of one of these windows um If This Were um you know one of these uh these rails here it would be a little bit more complicated to repair it um because I would need to take the entirety of the window apart
which is why I chose this window over some of the other ones or the S um [Music] and before generally speaking before I make any new parts I like to um survey it and
take as much information off the assembled unit as possible um but uh so the whole perimeter um is drawboard um often times you'll see instead of um these pins here you'll see um wedge
tenons serve the same purpose um but uh reduce the assembly time um to do um these are typically not done by measure um you drill the hole in the mortise first you assemble the unit you mark the center and then you knock it apart you
drill that separate hole with the offsets um so these are all just stub mortices they're just pressure fit just kind of sit back like that notice how thin this is you'd think that
early windows are very thick and heavy you know that they're really made well well these are only made out of 78 of an inch wood they started with a a stock that was like 1 in and it was then PL down to the 78 and it's standard it's used on doors it's used everything
that's made out of the 17 7 a like that reproduction window I showed you um and the profile typically sets the joinery pattern um so that all of your M tenants are laid out by um this flat
here so after care careful serve it [Music] just in the whip one of those up in the shop like six months later and repairs like this need not be
um a lot of people get a little too fussy on um treating it as if it's a piece of furniture it's it's a work of art but it's a functional object um and so all work should be done accurately but in a workmanlike manner um so bottoms of mores don't need to be
cleaned up you don't have to be overly fussy about um what your tenons look like per say so long as the Works um you can repair a window um and if if you know what you're doing and you have
the right tooling um this repair from the time that I pulled this out of the woods behind my shop um and select a piece of material um this whole thing was done about 40 minutes probably um for you and then well that's what I meant the skilled hand so you have to
know you have to know what the object is and then you also have to know what you're doing you also have to have the tooling for it so um but they're not the skills are not inaccessible um and you are are you using traditional
hand tools to to create this situation I did I uh well so your mortises are made just with a chisel then without no um I I use a hollow Cho of morer to to cut those it's same idea
yeah um so this is a plane that I used to strike the bead uh this cut profile and uh this that cuts the mutton profile yes okay [Music]
can and a lot of times you're looking for uh these are a lot of these are custom and regionally spe specific so the likelihood of finding the exact right plan maker um is U not very high so um
how about for cases of kind of paint from monies often times I find it can be a little challenging in trying not to damage money when trying to remove the on it um any recommendations to try to find profile helps doing
I love W brushes take as much away with a paint scraper as you can and then get in there with a you know start off with a stainless steel go to brass and then downshift is that with the glass in or out well that's a you can ruin the glass
completely notionally I try only to redo the ones that need the pain but I do replace my windows and there's some that I find that build up a paint is enough that that Tak them down and try very carefully not to damage the profile of it's a
lot but it's not undoable for Homeowner glazing oneself and you know teaching these skills it's tough to glaze a window properly takes it takes a few thousand it's not easy to do it on window or
house um and then um just a fun thing to sort of point out too is if um everybody takes a close look at this window I I didn't notice it when I pulled out of the S the sash rather um there's a
variety of names that have been itched into the glass here um and uh you know it's all just a bit of the fabulous building's history that somebody's willing to scrap forget which side it's written from probably from the inside oh yeah I see him right here that's great cool and
they go down into this pain as well who who are they that put their name I I just noticed it two days ago so I don't know U I'm assuming one of them was the resident of the house anyway eron school children Yeahs would do
that like you're doing the sidewalk when there's fresh cement you put your hand on wow that's great a diamond ring um and then as far as other basic pairs um the uh horizontal Mountain um
on the upper sides a lot of times that little glazing bar is an area that gets a lot of direct weather and also UV damage so as soon as the you are right as soon as the glazing and the the U paint goes away and the sun gets at it it's as damaging as the uh as the water
is and so a lot of times it instead of a rectangular rectangular profile it becomes a little bit more of a triangular profile and at that point it's very diff difficult um to get a a good um strike a good um run of glazing
and you have to get a little bit more sculptural um and so most of the time what I do there is if I have an inventory of Windows which this one um I have seven or eight that were all fairly similar in size so you can um you can just swap parts um if
they're in better shaped than the ones that you have um but um actually both of these you can see this side here the the weather um as it spills away this would have been the position for this
unit um and same thing here it's unfortunately those are areas that are a little bit more easily done with glue um but the glue joint is on the interior and I try always to not have just a simple glue joint um that always create a u at
sides this repair here out the head casing so there's glue on the top and on each of the sides it's just unavoidable in certain situations um and so when I if I need to uh replace a replace a glazing bar which this is
actually um sort of an instatute repair that you can do is um you just uh score line top and bottom of it nice and deep uh the utility and then snap the bar off you have to do it with the glass out and then use about a chisel um and
just sort of cut a trough and then you just pressure fit with glue and it'll stay but the the glue and everything is on the interior I've been using a cyan acry I think that was it's like a superglue
that wood Turners use to stabilize bur uh so when they put it on the lathe it doesn't blow apart which I use on raw wood like that to actually fill the pores I don't you ever use that but it's it's different from wood penetrating
epoxy but it does it does actually work and holds stuff together okay like if you have rot somewhere you can just pour that on there and it just makes it a whole mass of uh glue Glu um and then these are some weather
stripping that I use um to enhance the windows we we always hear about the drafty old windows but this stuff is works great that copper or brass bronze
bronze cushion that's good there there's another company called resource conservation technology right that they make compressible rubber bulb strips for these kinds of Windows um this is kind of great but uh that's stuff also works in terms of it
um attaching this it's it's just uh brass Nails small Bron and that that particular I use those both of those together um I use the cushion stuff that goes on on the side or on the bottom and
um then we cut the uh the opposite of the silicone sort of flange on that into the sash itself um and that handles the friction a lot better um just on the sides on the sides and then there's a slightly different product for the bottom but that could be used on the
bottom as well any other uh questions wow that's great did a great job it's good that someone knows how to do it yes I know plenty of work in this town we know where you live
Lang you talked about uming when the house was built that you know certain window style would be typical for that home versus another versus another do we as a commission do we have
kind of a map of the neighborhood that kind of explains these homes are the oldest homes and this is what that style is and this is what is appropriate and then as you these homes were built a little bit later and this is the style and therefore this is what is
appropriate because it feels like at least for me and maybe because I'm a newer member each time someone comes in you know part of the understanding is when was this house built and what's expected and um you know I I don't
necessarily have all of that um I think you're probably a you know the trusted advisor on the committee but you know other than that tribal knowledge do we have anything that kind of helps us understand that to map it out I don't think we have any documents that would
tell us that maybe we should stylistically we do have the inventory and the inventory is done by an architectural historian that does describe the house but that would be the only documents we would have well we also I I
do have a compilation of a lot of the houses on the point I don't know who it was done by but I've given it to like pool boy I gave him a copy of it just so he could know you know the history a little bit but um it's got quite a few houses and I thought I had it in here to
give to you to um to to share with everybody but I'll look for it again because I know I have it it's got a lot of the old houses and a little bit of the history and the other things you get them to put plaques on here Betty so you you'll find that the the earlier windows
are all very similar but as it moves into the Greek Revival period that the M profiles will change become even thinner than some some of the things that thanel has been showing us and those were made in factories and they came as units uh so if you doing an analysis of
an old house you want to find out when it's made um but they're all made the same way but the profiles you might find slightly different so that's the thing that you want to keep if you're doing any restoration work you want to match that profile and and many of the houses
have multiple different types of there's difference I have several I have both the um you got some some two over two that are big old that are newer two over two that have this compressed hinges that compress sideways I have older
spring spr six over six that have the sideways Springs you know and both of which are probably not original to the existing initial 1830 um probably
was maybe maybe the6 could have been well usually what happens is a renovation so they kind of clean it up the Bonnie Hicks house used to have 12 over 12s but they changed them out to be six over sixes when they did a some restoration work on the inside of the
house so you think there would be nice to have a sort conference listing but um it would s that purist to well not that just pierces that houses have also lived a life they have they have stories to tell too and so it's kind ofing each
individual window May deserve its own um treatment chronic renovation is not a modern phenomenon well from a preservationist standpoint you know where do you which campaign do you go to right well preservationist you would stop today but
yeah restoration Artisan you would have to choose your timeline yeah exactly so are there um are there resources are there websites that that uh we can send people to who want um sure but they won't get you to me um but yeah
no this is this is great by the way I mean I've I've learned a lot and a lot of us have old hous there are a lot there's um for various window hardware and um I'm not sure if they carry any actually yeah they do weather stripping um
is Smith restoration sash um I'm not sure where they're located anymore but they they used to actually manufacture reproduction windows but now they focus primarily on the hardware um there's architectural Resource Center um which is in New Hampshire um there's what was
the one you mentioned uh well they make weather stripping uh resource conservation group then there are people that actually specialize in making reproduction Windows there's a company in main that makes them no it's
something uh well Tim maybe could maybe you could send around some I mean the res resources you know about if we could have repository um not to steer not to steer business in any specific way but if here are some available resources and
some some Artisans Little Harbor windows in Maine they make reproduction Windows Greek Revival sash all that kind of stuff because there's a number of Architects who are actually doing that kind of work but the easier we make this
information to access for homeowners the more likely it is that we can get home owners to um repair and restore rather than replace so are there a lot of people doing what you're doing or is it around you're you're around yeah well I just
like to say that we have Nathaniel here tonight but I certainly would invite anyone else to come to the commission for a presentation like this for the work they do some people specialize in let's say uh framework of trying to restore the
interior seal work and those ston work and everything else well he does that too that that's more my specialty um this is where I started off but I've gravitated to what structures to structure Timber frames yeah well I think s work is certainly needed on the
cape I've gotten so many phone calls from people wanting to know something about rotting Timbers in the cellar and the floor falling in or a sill sagging on this side so um and I don't think many people do that you know that are
I don't think people in just general construction W even get involved with it so nice to well there are lots of people doing that kind of like if you're doing work in Nantucket or someplace like that you can't just tear the sill out and do whatever you want with it they they actually make sure that you do a proper
restoration program and I think nathaniels doing did work like that there uh they have to Jack the house up and pry the thing out and stick it back in there without taking the building down so that's fascinating to see how it's done but there there are a lot of
people doing it there's more of an appetite on frames where the frame closed it's a little bit harder a little bit of a harder cell when the the um frame is clad in you know various trims and other things like that I want to mention one thing about
about the glass in the windows the newest development is thermog glass and um not that it can fit in that window I don't I it could if they made if they made thermog glass in 6x8 panes like that thermoglass is like a thermos
bottle it's not insulated glass but it's glass that is only like A4 of an inch thick it has the same r value insulating value as the 3/4 of an inch Anderson insulated glass so um and they're making
it in this country now and there there is a company that makes restoration windows with that glass that's great uh and and that's really the latest development because everyone says they don't want storm windows and they want
their beautiful Windows to show and um the only thing they can say is to put a uh if put a panel on the inside which they don't like so or put in new thermal pane windows or triple track or Allied
Windows makes a single panel that is adds another insulating space to the window but you know these things are tough to keep your house uh warm with these wall sections CU they have no R values all the stuff down at the point
is you know very very low R values yeah they're about half on a good day with a a well tuned window and a good storm system they're only about half as efficient as sort of a mid-grade window um commercially available nice heavy
velvet curtain well then that is always the thing though people every especially when you live on the street everybody has heavy window dressing shutters shutters I mean there and that sort of time you put but but it is quite frankly there are options for
how to add increased insulation to our old houses and live them comfortably and especially draft you when when you start working through window weather stripping and then you start making sure that it's tight as much as you can and then you go on the inside you add okay okay I think we should wrap
thank you thank you very much you this has really been helpful Windows have been a real problem to us and now we have a film document yes that we can refer people to yes and old house yeah
but I mean windows are uh one of the key features of these old properties that make them that are very easy to sell when they're wrong of people you know we we you don't notice it until you seeds are empty ey are staring at you from
some soulless house someone who's on the job wrong and windows are very visible for key okay do I hear a motion J yeah motion to adjourn anybody motion to adjourn a second okay all in
favor oppose motion carries if you've seen there's a really great