Crack Repair, Cocina wall and South wall

Since there is so much work being completed all at once, this entry is chock full of photos.

Exterior Walls:

The exterior walls are undergoing crack repair. As you can see in the following pictures the cracks are first scraped to remove loose mud and plaster. After they have been scraped and vacuumed, DCU crew member, Bruce Ihle, sprays water and wets the cracks. He then uses a grout bag to inject mud into the cracks. In photo #4, DCU crew member, Pancho Villa, coats and scores the mud plaster over the cracks. It will dry for 3-4 days.

Cocina Wall:

The cocina wall is almost complete. These photos show the wall during construction including the wall being constructed with the historic opening to allow smoke from the bracero to escape. The last pictures shows work progressing this week. The rake of the roof is being constructed with the adobe bricks.

South wall:

The DCU and CCC crew has also been working on the top gable end of the south wall. The gable end is at the top of the south end of the building and therefore the scaffolding for the project is a serious feat. A large ladder leads to the top of the scaffolding where the work is taking place. -JK

Cocina Walls are Almost Complete!

Last week (April 7-11) work on the Castro Adobe focused on the cocina walls. Most of the work was concentrated on the north cocina wall. Last week the first courses of the wall were laid by brick making volunteers from last summer. Later, the DCU and CCC crews continued work on the wall (see Photo #1). Work is expected to be completed on the north wall in the coming week.

On the interior of the cocina wall, the original shelves were incorporated with the new adobe wall (see Photo #2).

The doorway which led from the cocina to the modern kitchen was filled-in (historically there had been no door from the interior of the cocina to the main building) utilizing new and original adobe bricks (see Photo #3).

The east wall (where the bathroom in the cocina was previously located) was completed (see Photo #4).

-JK

Brick Making Volunteers Lay a Brick

On Wednesday, April 2, over 20 volunteers from the summer 2007 brick making project were given a great opportunity to be able to lay one of the bricks in the north cocina wall. The adobe bricks laid in the wall were the bricks volunteers had made in July and August 2007. Along with the assistance of the DCU (Direct Construction Unit) and the CCC crew, the volunteers were able to spread the mortar and help set the brick in place. We will post pictures of the event soon, but both the Santa Cruz Sentinel and the Register-Pajaronian were on site to document the incredible event. Check back for pictures of the event. Thank you to all the volunteers who made the bricks last summer...and made the seismic stabilization project a reality!-JK

Follow these links to the newspaper articles:
Santa Cruz Sentinel http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_8793274

Register-Pajaronian http://www.register-pajaronian.com/V2_news_articles.php?heading=0&story_id=3881&page=72

Finished South Gable Wall

This week (March 24-28) work focused on the completion of the south gable wall (see photo #1 and #2 for before and after).

Work also continued on the north cocina wall. More of the original river cobblestones were installed at the foundation base and a few of the adobe brick courses were completed (see photo#3 and #4).

Also this week, construction began on the east cocina wall at the doorway. These pictures (photos # 5 and #6) show Bruce Ihle and CCC crew carefully cutting the bricks while Pancho Villa lays the bricks in courses. Photo #7 shows the wall a little over half way completed.-JK

Work Continues on South Gable End Wall and Cocina Foundation

This week (March 17-March 20) work continued on repair of the south gable end wall. As you can see from Photo #1, much progress has been made on the wall.

Reconstruction of the corners of the adobe building can be the most technical and time consuming as the new adobe bricks must be 'stitched in' with the existing adobe bricks (see Photo 2).

Other on-going work includes the reconstruction of the cocina foundation wall. The rebar cage was constructed and installed into the deep hole which will become the base of the cocina wall. Concrete was pumped in on Monday March 17 (see Photo #3 and Photo #4).

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A day later the originial cobblestone rocks were inserted back into the new concrete foundation to maintain the appearance of the original foundation wall (see Photo #5).-JK

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

North Cocina Wall

On March 3 -5th, work continued on the north cocina wall. As the wall was dismantled, the river cobblestone foundation was exposed (see photo #1).



Archaeologist, Karen Hildebrand, explained that the foundation appeared to consist of various layers and courses of river cobblestone throughout the north wall. The west end of the foundation is composed of cobblestone which is two layers thick and three courses across (see
photo #2).





The east end is similar in layers yet but only consisted of two courses at the perimeter of the base (see photo #3). This type of foundation is quite different from the rest of the building.




After the cobblestone was recorded through photographs and detailed drawings, the stones were removed and a 30-inch trench was dug to accommodate the new foundation of concrete and rebar (see photo #4).



The new foundation will not be visible in the reconstruction and the existing river cobblestone will be integrated to maintain the appearance of the original construction.-JK

Earthquake Damage #1

March 3, 2008 Work continues to to uncover the many layers of history and the project archaeologists Karen Hildebrand is on hand so that each layer is understood and captured. Here we see that earthquakes have forever been a nemesis to the adobe. -RW

Work Begins!

Work has begun on the Castro Adobe! The long awaited seismic stabilization is underway.

On Feb 21st work started with a group of California Conservation Corps (CCC) members and Direct Construction Unit (DCU) crew setting up scaffolding for the project. What a difference a week makes! The DCU foreman, Chris Barrazza and his crew are moving quickly. (Photo 1 shows interior of cocina wall with gable end dismantled. Photo 2 shows CCC member carefully removing historic corner shelves from cocina.)

The cocina (historic kitchen) wall is about to be dismantled, the fireplace is being dismantled as well as the other non-historic interior features of the building. Part of the south gable wall is exposed and is being assessed for the best way possible to maintain the original adobe bricks and integrate them with the new adobe bricks made in summer 2007.

Today, the State archaeologist, Karen Hildebrand was rapidly finishing her documentation of the cocina wall before the DCU crew dismantled the damaged wall. Volunteers from the Santa Cruz Archaeological Society assisted Karen by removing the plaster from the interior north wall. Karen was excited to locate the original vent holes, view smoke stains, and holes for cooking tools in the cocina wall. Locating these will ensure the correct placement of the bracero (masonry range) in the interpretive plan in the future. (I apologize for the video orientation...but it was such good information I felt I had to post it!) We hope to update the blog more frequently now that work is proceeding ...so check back often! -JK

January 16, 2008-Brick Maintenance

A few of us ventured out into the cold Central California winter to do some upkeep on the bricks and perform weed control around each pallet.The first job was to clear the quickly growing weeds surrounding the pallets. We also attempted to clear the dirt underneath the pallets (pushed up underneath by gophers) to ensure a steady air flow from the ground to the bricks.

From left to right-Charlie Kieffer, Jim Brownson, Jim Toney, Jessica Kusz, and Barney Levy (Randy Widera-not pictured).

We also took the covers off a few sample pallets to check the condition of the bricks. Most of them appeared in good condition although some had suffered a bit of water damage generally due to covers shifting in the recent storms and exposing portions of the bricks. Some bricks exhibited moisture from condensation although this is a fairly common occurrence when bricks are covered and stored.

Charlie Kieffer, Barney Levy and Jim Toney check the bricks.

We also noted that the dirt piled up underneath the bricks did not appear to be causing the expected damage to the bottom of the bricks....of course we didn't discover this until after we had cleaned out most of the dirt!

In one instance, the plastic cover had blown off half of the pallet which exposed a portion of the bricks to the elements.

Note the difference between the tops of the brick. The smooth surface had not been exposed to the weather while the other had been exposed.

Some rubber bands surrounding the pallets covers had snapped due to UV exposure and each one was re-secured and tied down with either poly-propylene rope or with duct tape. We also cleared any downed tree branches and leaves off the tops of the pallets. We didn't find many tears in the black plastic and it seems to be holding up quite well.

Thanks for all the hard work from the Friends board members, Jim B, Barney, Charlie, and Jim T! -JK