Building Facade Integrating Service Raceways Seamlessly
This past week, we got a chance to take a look at the historic building here in Washington DC where an electrical raceway was used on the exterior of the facade. The raceway worked like a conduit to esconce or hide cabling that was installed to upgrade or add additional power to the interior devices in the existing electrical system. The raceway hid the cable in, but added a bit of an ugly protruding detail to the otherwise relatively flush and true historic brick facade. To people who are unaware of what this particular molding or raceway does, they might not understand what they’re looking at here on the wall.
However, to some people, especially the ones who know what they’re looking at, it looks like a mistake. It looks like the raceway was never intended to be installed on the building facade. It’s true, the original architect and builder never intended for an additional type of odd molding to be installed directly on the face of the exterior facade, but someone, more recently, painted it red, in this case to make it look a little bit better, this sort of blended it in with the brick.
The shadow presents a obvious distinction between the facade itself, and the raceway. The shadow of the raceway, more distinct in days and times of more intense sunlight, highlights the protruding shape this raceway adds to the wall. If it were installed flatter or closer to the wall itself, the raceway would be less noticeable and look better, overall.
The next picture below shows a closer view. Although these raceways significantly detract from the presentation of the facade, in low-value type buildings, it might save a lot of cost because it can prevent significant amounts of drywall or plaster damage on the inside of the building. Any method of avoiding interior damage can also be particularly important if the building happens to be a multi-tenant type of occupied building. In this particular case these buildings are apartment buildings and likely had tenants in place at the time of the upgrades. Keeping the impact of upgrades and modifications minimal is particularly important when the building is occupied with tenants.
Often, opening drywall assemblies to install electrical wiring inside the framing can be specifically expensive because it not only requires patching of the drywall, but generally also includes or requires additional cost for repainting. Some surfaces cannot be just repainted at the specific location of the damage, in some cases they need to be repainted from corner to corner to not show the difference of the area of repair. If the area of repair is not Blended in, or if the entire surface is not repainted, paints that do not match perfectly will often leave an obvious distinction between an area of repair and the adjacent areas of the remainder of the field of paint.
The next two pictures show closer views of this raceway. You can basically think of the raceway as a type of conduit. Conduits are generally not only encases cabling to keep it out of view, but sometimes can actually protect the cabling as well. This particular raceway doesn’t necessarily protect the cabling, from a code rated perspective, but it still does perfect the wiring from multiple different types of minor damage or abrasion from elements at the exterior.
An upclose view follows below. If you look very closely at this picture, you can see that there is a screw set at the elbow or the change in direction of the raceway where a small trim-piece or small door can be opened to access the wiring.
We can Help
Our company focuses on historic restoration more than modern building upkeep, maintenance, and construction, but our company understands both types of construction very well and a full picture well-rounded approach is needed in any niche in the construction industry. Although we focus on historic restoration, repointing, tuckpointing and historic brick repair, our company also has technical knowledge and competencies in the areas of modern and contemporary construction as well as we become one of the leaders in that area of the market today. Understanding both historic and modern or contemporary construction is useful because both aspects help understand the challenges and potential solutions for challenges in building science and construction.
We can help with a variety of historic masonry restoration needs and upkeep, from modest tuckpointing and or repointing to complicated and extensive historic masonry restoration. Infinity Design Solutions is a historic restoration specialist contractor specializing in both historic masonry restoration such as tuckpointing our repointing, and brick repair. If you have questions about the architectural details or facade of your historic building in Washington DC, reach out and say hello and if we can help we’ll be glad to assist you. You can email us or call us on the telephone at the following link: contact us here.
