Bandelier Historic Structure Report: CCC Buildings

BUILDING COMPONENTS (continued)

Built-in and Chronic Problems

The CCC buildings at Bandelier were plagued with a series of recurrent problems. Their histories are summarized here, by topic. Information on existing conditions, current problems, and recommendations for treatment are presented in section 4.

Roofs. The roofs at Bandelier were always a problem. The first mention of roof work came in 1938. The freeze-thaw cycle of snow on the roofs of the residences made patching necessary around canales, where the wood had shrunk and allowed water to seep in. [46] By 1942, the maintenance staff had considerable patching to do on the operator's residence (B-18) and other unspecified buildings. They used a "new type roofing compound" that seemed to work well, and they hoped that somewhere they could find $1,200 to do all the buildings in the development. [47] The money must have come through, because they were able to waterproof all of the roofs by November, but some were in such bad shape that the staff did not think they would last long without total roof replacement. [48]

Winter of 1943 was not much better for the roofs. Despite the efforts of the staff to shovel the snow off the roofs and properly de-ice the canales, the custodian wrote, "Floods of water poured into several buildings. Our roofs are quite picturesque, but that's about as far as they go." [49] During the spring of 1944, staff climbed up on the roofs during every bit of warm weather and continued their "never-ending" patching. [50]

Figure 38	Figure 39

Figure 40	Figure 41
CCC-built light fixture of Spanish colonial design. (Photos: Copeland for NPS)

Figure 42	Figure 43
Figure 44
Spanish colonial light fixtures built by the CCC. (Photos: Copeland for NPS)

Figure 45	Figure 46
CCC-built door hardware. (Photos: Copeland for NPS)

This cycle continued through the years. Citing all the minute repairs and reroofing jobs would take up several boring pages of redundant data, so a summary is given here. Blisters were cut out and repaired. When allotments came through for partial or total reroofing of the buildings, the usual method was to reroof the structures with materials similar to the original. As far as the records show, only a few changes were made. In 1944, canales were coated with asbestos cement. [51] Some type of "bonded roofs" was installed on some of the buildings in 1951, but these proved unsuccessful in 1952 because of water leaking underneath the roofing. [52] In 1980, the polyurethane foam roofing was installed; its problems are dealt with in section 4. The roofs have been the focus of continual repair since construction. Despite the best efforts of the monument staff, the leaks continued. One frustrated custodian summed it up by saying, "Leaks occurred almost impartially in the roofs we have treated and in those not treated."

Vigas and Canales. By 1941, cracked and shrunken vigas were a problem in the buildings. Although the forestry crew tried to make certain that all vigas were seasoned before use, the fast-paced construction may not always have permitted enough seasoning. Architect Lyle Bennett was called in to make recommendations on treating cracks in the exterior portions of the viga ends.

His system was to fill the cracks with a light gray, permanently elastic, nonstaining caulking compound to prevent water from seeping in and causing rot. If some decay was already evident, he recommended pouring zinc chloride dissolved in water (no proportions given) into the cracks to kill fungi, letting the viga dry, and then caulking it. [53] This system did not work adequately — possibly because it was not implemented in all cases, or possibly because the materials did not react favorably. By 1946, the park staff was replacing decayed viga ends. Their new method was to cut away all decayed material from the viga end until they reached sound material. They coated the end of the log with wood preservative Permatox A, sealed it with roofing compound, treated the new projecting stub with the preservative and roofing compound, and then cemented it into place. [54] Many of the remaining viga ends are these stubs, replaced through the years.

Rotting canales were also a problem. The park staff replaced six of them in 1953, but the custodian did not write down any details on the construction of the replacements. [55] No further written documentation was found on this point.

Utilities. Two problems of improper design of the utility systems recurred through the years. The first was the placement of pipes and wiring in stone and concrete, making repair extremely difficult (figure 47). In 1943, a sewer line became clogged in B-20, between cabins 7 and 8, so the cement floor was broken up and the line under the cabins was dug up and repaired. The floor had to be replaced. [56] This same line had to be dug out again 10 years later "to remove accumulated roots." [57] The hot water line to the bathroom of B-8 burst in 1945, and a considerable amount of stone and concrete had to be removed before the leak was finally found and repaired. [58] Similar problems were experienced with electrical lines embedded in concrete, particularly in the visitor center.

Figure 47. Waterlines embedded in stone channel during construction. (Photo: Bandelier)

The second problem arose with fuels; there was too great an assortment. Hugh Miller felt that the problem developed out of the nature of the CCC work. No one knew how long the program would last, or at what stage construction would be cut off. Also, funds were extremely limited. He felt that the whole matter had been handled ineptly, but that the blame really belonged with the process of the development and not necessarily with the designers. [59] Custodian Chester A. Thomas complained that the operation of the physical plant was not efficient and summarized the fuels he used:

wood — used for space heating in residences and for cooking . . . propane — operation of refrigerators in residences and for cooking in residence #1. Used for water heating in residences . . . fuel oil — used for heating office building and proposed for museum lobby and comfort stations . . . coal — used to heat water in laundry room and in shower rooms in campground . . . butane — for use in proposed lookout . . . gasoline — used in power plant and for lights in residences in emergency.

He recommended consolidating fuels to one or two types so that the monument staff could buy in sufficient quantity to get reasonable prices. [60] The situation did improve somewhat over the years. Existing conditions are summarized in section 4.

Aesthetics. Concern with the visual appearance of the structures was a high priority from the time of construction. When the monument staff proposed placing permanent fire equipment around the structures in 1940, the regional office insisted on helping select the locations that would not detract from the appearance of the buildings. [61] Although the relatively simple design of the buildings has made them hardy enough to withstand a series of incompatible changes through the years, concern with their visual character waned during the past two decades in favor of more practical solutions to everyday problems. The original windows in most of the residences, for instance, were replaced with single-light thermal pane windows. This change from the multilight casements had a detrimental visual effect on the buildings' exterior character. In recent years a heightened concern with the buildings' visual appearance has arisen. The area's status as a national historic landmark should further ameliorate the situation.