Award

FEBRUARY 2015 | 39 Restoration Products & Services H The restoration sector continues to expand its palette of talent and technology by GODFREY BUDD Horse hair and stale beer are seldom, if ever, found in company catalogues of products offered for renova- tion or restoration. Elastomeric compounds and poly- styrene are more the order of the day. So when horse hair and stale beer are in fact deployed in a restoration project there is no mistake that key stakeholders are serious about achieving period authenticity. Those apparent throwbacks from an earlier tech- nological era were used on a three-year restoration project at Toronto's John F. Taylor House that was com- pleted in 2014. "Today, we tend to use modern prod- ucts to mimic the original look," says Ed Humphries, an engineer and project manager at Colonial Building Restoration. "It's unusual to use period or historic technology or products, but in this case we used an original method to achieve a unique effect." The original method that Humphries mentions refers to the use about a century ago of horse hair as a binder in certain plastering applications, particularly ceilings and crown mouldings. "A plasterer from Ireland suggested it to the architect," says Humphries. The Irishman who worked on the project is an expert in heritage plaster work. The Taylor House restoration received an award from Heritage Toronto. But the use of stale beer on Taylor House did not stem from some ancient construction technology. Instead, Humphries says, it was more the result of a product development initiative to improve the appear- ance of mismatched brickwork on restored buildings. The architect on the heritage project had been working with a British stonemason to find a way to make various styles of brick, often with slightly differ- ent sizes, and from different periods, somehow look as if they were all part of a homogeneous front. "It would still show the same colour across all the brick and impart a sense of uniformity," Humphries explains. He adds that obtaining a perfect match for a specific aged section of brick is often impossible. Somehow, the architect and the stonemason came up with stale beer and, mixed with baker's alum, it was applied to the exterior brickwork on the project to achieve the desired effect. Clifford Restoration Limited, the restoration arm of The Clifford Group, is another firm that reaches for period authenticity. Its chief conservation specialist, Donovan Pauly, has a trade certificate and did masonry work for 12 years before obtaining a master's degree in architectural conservation from the U.K.-based Bournemouth University. A recent project involved restoration work on the legislature in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Completed last summer in time for a photograph session in September of politicians and other dig- nitaries to mark the 150th anniversary of the 1864 Charlottetown Conference that led to the founding of Canada, the work was mostly structural upgrading to retain some stone masonry on the front of Province House, as the PEI legislature is called. "The project was limited in scope and was mostly only to carry out in situ repair of the exterior stone for esthetics, and to limit water ingress," Pauly says. The work done on Province House was the subject of a seminar presented by Pauly and others on the proj- ect's team at a recent heritage building conference. Suppliers and manufacturers are adding to their product lines with an eye to preserving, restoring, or generally boosting the sustainability of existing build- ings. A new coating from Durabond Products Ltd., called Ecto-Sil 1000, is a breathable silicone elastomeric product for use in vertical above-grade waterproofing that is designed to resist colour fade, chalking and deg- radation from natural weathering. "It's for treating the exterior of old buildings to prevent moisture intrusion. It's a brand new product for Durabond, which is mostly An Oldie But A Goodie Zola's American Heritage Simulated Double Hung windows; Toronto's John F. Taylor House completed by Colonial Building Restoration in 2014; The PEI legislative building following repair by Clifford Restoration Ltd. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY ZOLA EUROPEAN WINDOWS, COLONIAL BUILDING RESTORATION & CLIFFORD RESTORATION LTD.

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