Key Insights into Urban Stick Frame Construction Techniques The vast majority of our blogs and content here on our website, go into detail and look closely at historic masonry construction and restoration. Often we talk about masonry, brick, and mortar deterioration, repointing and tuck pointing… Read More »Contemporary Urban Stick Frame Facade Construction – Part I
Timeless Appeal of Pressed Tin Ceilings A while back, we got to look at a interesting historic masonry building. Sadly, this masonry building has now been demolished. Like many architectural treasures in urban areas, they are complicated and expensive to maintain and where people do… Read More »Pressed Tin Ceiling in a Brick Building
Identifying and Addressing Cracked Stone Header Effectively In this past week, we took a look at several different types of failed brick opening headers and talked about some of the issues related to lateral deflection and deterioration of historic brick mortar joints (and associated repointing… Read More »Cracked Stone Header
Preserving the Craftsmanship of Historic Masonry Headers Today we are looking at window and door openings in masonry partitions. On the surface it might sound like an obvious and basic topic, but it’s actually quite complex when you look at the evolution and history. Supporting… Read More »Historic Masonry Headers – A Primer
Here on our website, we have lots of different content where you can learn about the historic building construction anatomy, design, architecture and structural preservation needed to maintain and preserve these historic buildings here in Washington DC. We specialize in historic restoration and repointing and… Read More »Rake Boards at the Top of a Historic Brick Facade
Over the past few weeks, we’ve looked at different aspects of a freestanding building foundation. Although this is new construction, it is a good context to use as a point of comparison to understand the historic building foundations here in the inner city of Washington… Read More »Foundation Drainage – Part II
Foundation drainage is a complex topic of high importance, to avoid wet basements and foundations. We could probably dedicate an entire book to just this topic because there are many facets and different details to proper Foundation drainage, grading, what are diversion, and waterproofing. All… Read More »Foundation Drainage – Part I
This past week, we had an opportunity to take a look at a modern type of simple residential concrete foundation for a new home. Although the principles and layout of this particular foundation are relatively simple and straightforward, it’s not something we often get to… Read More »An Exposed Building Foundation – Part II
This past week, we took the very rare chance to get out of the concrete jungle of Washington DC and out into the sleepy and near-endless suburbs beyond. We had the chance to take a close look at a new concrete foundation for a contemporary… Read More »An Exposed Building Foundation – Part I
Last week, we published an article starting a conversation about several fundamental aspects of basement foundations and waterproofing. Not all houses in Washington, DC or even commercial buildings for that matter have basements. Some of those buildings are set on relatively shallow footings, generally built… Read More »Areaway Drains – Part I