Linen and Silk Don’t Like Smoke and Water

At the end of Week Three we have made a great deal of progress. The “clean-up” Phase of the restoration is almost complete.

1. The smoke damage has been “ice-blasted” off the entire inside of the church and sacristy.

2. The A/C duct work has been totally cleaned out – from the inside!

3. The windows, doors and fixtures have all been cleaned.

4. The Sacristy has been stripped down to the bare brick and is ready for restoration.

5. We have started to get vestments back and the cleaners did a wonderful job of removing the smoke smell from them. There are however a large number that were damaged by water and or the cleaning process itself. These are generally the older fine linen albs and silk vestments. (Sorting through the vestments to determine which have been ruined has been the most emotionally challenging part of this process so far for me. I keep reminding myself that they are just things and they can be replaced, even if they are old and beautiful.)

6. The insurance adjuster has cleared us to get bids for the roof repair, sacristy rebuild, flooring, sound and electrical work. Some of this work should start next week, but the roof repairs – the single largest project – will probably not start for a couple of weeks. We are waiting on another bid and the wood planking will have to specially milled. Unfortunately, a great deal of the work cannot be done until after the roof is repaired.

Next week, Service Masters will work of the stubborn smoke stains that the ice blasting failed to remove and begin the work to restore the pews.

We received good news on the piano, it is fine and being stored. There is, however, some concern about the electronics in the organ. The organ company is worried that the smoke has damaged them and they are trying to determine the level of the damage and the appropriate remedy – repair the damage or replace the whole organ.