Steve Welch
What has been happening
The dry summer we have just experienced was worrisome for those of us that have wells and browning lawns; but it was a lucky break for the progress of stabilizing the Town Hall. Because of the lack of remain, we were able to completely pump out the cellar hole that for nearly 40 years has been a five foot deep cistern of ground water beneath the floor of the front section of the building.
Dark, dangerous, and devoid of any practical use to the functioning of the structure, the pit was kept under lock and key behind a padlocked door located under the staircase to the second floor. When the Town Hall was originally built, a smaller version of it existed under the front section of the building. Sometime around the end of the 19802 and beginning of the 1990s, the hole was further excavated to provide a proper place to relocate the furnace that was on the first floor. Unfortunately, it was soon discovered that a high water table level quickly filled up the newly re-dug cellar. So, the furnace had to remain on the first floor and the cellar option was abandoned.
After years of not having any good ideas of how to solve the cellar water problem, we decided to fill in the space with crushed rock, top it off with a plastic liner, and so raise the cellar floor up to the level of the surrounding 32-inch height that exists under the rest of the Town Hall (which has remained high and dry above the incoming water).
The work was done on October 27 and 28 by the Tom Grace Company. It took about 40 yards of stone to do the job. We fashioned a sump pump casing from a plastic culvert remnant obtained from the town garage. This was installed as the crushed rock was run down from the dump truck into the cellar using a pair of old coal chutes.
Mold Remediation
On Tuesday, November 5th, the Town Hall building began the first stage of mold remediation. Craig Pelkey and his technicians came up and fumigated the building. The next step was to get the furnace back up and running so that the building would be heated over the coming cold weather months. This happened on Monday, December 1st, and the building first floor has been kept warm a dry through the past three months.
Tours of the Building
After some more cleaning, re-hanging of the curtains, and a little floor repair, we were ready to invite a group of folks from the Wednesday Seniors’ Coffee group at the Grange to come down to the Town Hall to see the inside of the building. Around 10:45 AM on February 11th, they saw for themselves what we have on the first and second floors of this historic 1895 structure. The following Tuesday, February 17th, we invited the Chittenden Volunteer Fire Department to come over from their weekly 6:00 PM meeting for a short slide show and homemade pies with cider and coffee. They had previously started the clean-out with us as we prepared for the mold remediation back in the fall. Both groups were able to view our painted curtain depicting a Civil War scene. This historic artifact is one of the precious few in New England that remain intact in their original setting. We plan to have more tours open to the townspeople in the spring and summer.
Senior Coffee Group visiting the Town Hall
The original hand painted stage curtain depicting the Civil War and in its original setting. Senior Coffee Group admiring it.
Chittenden Fire Department members helped with the initial clean-out. Now observing how good the Town Hall looks at this point. Many Thanks.
Good works deserve pie! Thanks Fire Department.
