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

January 2, 2008

Today we ventured out to the Castro to do a a primary check of the adobe bricks to see how they are faring this winter. Our main concern was water wicking up from the ground and penetrating the brick as well as water pooled on top of the bricks infiltrating the pallet covers. We uncovered a sampling of bricks and found that our method of covering them with plastic pallet covers is mostly working to keep the bricks dry! The overall condition of the bricks was excellent with a few displaying a small amount of moisture/condensation on the tops of the bricks (see photo 2). One brick had some wicking at the bottom and was soft enough that with a strong force (Randy's thumb) an indentation was made into the brick (see photo 3). That condition only appeared on one brick and overall the base of the bricks appear to be withstanding the rain and moisture (see photo 4).

One issue we noted was that the large rubber bands used to secure the tops of the pallet covers are snapping due to UV exposure. The bands that have broken will be replaced with twine and thus the twine vs. rubber bands experiment has been answered. For use outdoors, twine endures much better than the large rubber bands.

A big storm is approaching tomorrow and our next steps are to clear away any branches that have fallen on or near the bricks. We also plan to clear the weeds growing around the base of the pallets. This should ensure our bricks are protected for the remaining winter months. -JK

Winter Upkeep at the Castro

A small group of us met at the Castro Adobe yesterday, December 5 from 12-3:00. Although the day was warm and sunny, it was apparent fall had come and gone with the bare trees and plants. The Persimmon tree's fruit was in full abundance and some in the group were kind enough to lighten its load.

The roof of the adobe has been tarped for the winter (a great job!) done by the State maintenance crew.

We then moved on to checking the palletized adobe bricks. Our method of tarping with thick plastic seems to be working well. The water is being diverted and we brushed the fallen leaves off the tops of the bricks so that water would not collect on top. A few pinhole openings in the pallet covers were patched with duct tape. We found that some of the rubber bands snapped (which bind the top of the pallet covers) and they appear to be very susceptible to UV. We will replace those with twine. Other than that, the adobe bricks seem to be doing well.

Our meeting ended with Charlie Kieffer telling us Castro family stories of his great great grandmother's reminisces of bandit Tiburcio Vasquez ! Wow.

Will return in two weeks to clear around the pallets and continue to monitor condition of the bricks and structure. -JK

Preparing for Winter!

Today we will be going out the Adobe to inspect how secure it is for the upcoming winter. Expect a post soon! RW

Weather proofing

Great question from GK on what is being done to protect the building from the upcoming rainy season. New tarps have been installed on the roof of the building..this should keep most of the weather out for the season. The new adobe bricks have been carefully covered and are being checked frequently to ensure that they are staying dry (in fact, we are doing a check today). Thanks for your question! -JK