South Gable End Wall

Work for the week of March 10-14th focused mostly on repair of the south gable end wall of the adobe. The wall had partially collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The Direct Construction Unit (DCU) crew removed the adobe brick until a sound surface was located. Here is where they began the difficult task of rebuilding the adobe wall with new bricks (made on site last summer by dedicated volunteers and CCC staff!) and new mud mortar. Photo #1 shows DCU crew, Pancho Villa (yes, his real name), standing next to the existing adobe brick wall which is partially whitewashed. Above the whitewashed wall is the new adobe brick and mortar.

The next set of photos shows the process of pouring the mud mortar by DCU crew, Bruce Ihle,(Photo #2), spreading the mud mortar (Photo #3), scoring of the mud mortar before placement of the brick (Photo #4) and placing the heavy bricks (approximately 85lbs) into place (Photo #5).

Work on the wall continues this week. Look for updates on the cocina foundation wall and graffiti documentation later in the week.-JK