Although scheduled for an official return Feb. 22, with good fortune and rapid permit approval their first service might be held as early as today.
After nearly nine months of services and activities in the parish hall, reconstruction and renovations of the oldest non-residential building in the parish are nearly complete. The return will be the first time service has been held inside the church since May 28, when a 20-by-20 foot slab of plaster swung loose from the ceiling and fell, damaging two front pews, the impact leaving a wide swath of debris throughout the aisles.
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“I’m just overjoyed and excited,” McDonald said. “It was just a challenge, but the church isn’t in the building, it’s in the people. People came together. We did what we had to do, we became stronger and now we know each other better.”
William Kyle, church senior warden, said the exact cause of the ceiling failure remains unknown.
“We had five different experts in the building with five different opinions,” he said.
“What we do know is that the fasteners released out of the wire mesh, causing the failure of a 20-by-20 foot section. Each square foot of plaster weighed approximately 20 pounds, bringing the total weight of the falling material to about 4,000 pounds.”
Kyle said generally time, weight and vibration could be attributed to the ceiling give way.
“We just think one of the hurricanes caused shifting of the building,” Kyle said. “The plaster stayed put, starting the process of the nails pulling out. From that point on, the pulling out just continued, and led to the entire section dropping and swinging like a pendulum to crash on the front pews.”
Fortunately, the crash happened some time between evening services and preparations for the scheduled Epiphany Day School spring graduation.
“We were very blessed no one was hurt,” said Kyle.
Entering into a major renovation such as undergone by the church required large amounts of planning, labor and financing.
“Our insurance company was good to us,” said Kyle, who estimated the overall repair cost between $100,000 and $150,000.
The project involved removing all the debris, the erection of an interior scaffold to remove and replace the entire ceiling, removal and restoration of the damaged pews, cleaning ductwork, replacing carpeting, installing air conditioning in the choir loft and more.
“The logistics, like hauling the pews, was difficult,” said Brian E. Ducharme, president of Ducharme Brothers, the project’s general contractor. “We were fortunate we had a place to put them while we worked.”
There were quite a few older construction techniques Ducharme found interesting.
The new ceiling is beaded cypress, and is more in style to the original ceiling as it was prior to the church’s last major restoration in 1959, said McDonald.
The church was built in 1858 and has been listed on the National Registry of Historic Places since 1977, as noted by the official brass sign standing beside the entrance walkway.
“This is the oldest structure we’ve ever worked on,” Ducharme said. “The type of construction, finding the square-headed nails and the mortise and tenon work, that was great.”
The age and history of the building was evident throughout the project, one example being when Ducharme and his crew discovered wooden shingles in the attic that may or may not have been part of the original structure.
“It’s a beautiful building,” he said, before noting the much anticipated end of the project is nearly at hand. “We’re going to finish, then get the inspectors in, the fire marshal to come through, get necessary approvals, and then we clean up.”
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