175 Year Old Spring House

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I've been doing work on this old farm and they asked me to put a roof on the spring house. They still pull their water from this spring. It runs like a bath spigot from the overflow and feeds their pond

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That was the spring house when I first worked there back in Feb. '10. Here are before shots from the job when I did it in Aug. '11:

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I had nailed the roof down before when the wind pulled it loose. There was damage to some of the framing,so they asked my to redo all that. I wanted to retain as much of the original character while helping this old building last well into the future. The gables were solid enough I chose to keep them in place and build to those:

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did the trim,sheathing,and paper on,then started with the pre-fab standing seam roof:

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Roof all done:

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Next,they asked me to fix some problems with the stone work. There was a crack from below grade up to the window,across the sill and back down the inside down into the water trough. I dug down a good way,took all the loose stone out,and washed it using the overflow. Then,I poured a footer that went into the wall and aid stone up to grade using Portland cement. Above grade I used a brick mortar that I matched up to the original home made mortar:

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Once I got that done they decided I better go around and re-point up the weak spots in the mortar. I chisels out the loose stuff,cleaned it out,and troweled in new mortar. I could have gone ahead and done the whole thing,but wanted to leave as much original as possible.

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Now that the spring house is tightened up they,I should say she,are having me save the workshop building that was falling down,but that's another project. "She" is the 90 year old woman who is living alone here after her husband died a couple years ago. She still drives and is doing fine. She takes a walk around the property everyday and has a great outlook. "They" are her and her two daughters who are also very independent,healthy,and very handy. They both have families and live up in New England. One or the other seems to make it down every couple months. I've saved two other buildings from collapsing,as well as numerous other projects to assure the place lasts for her

[greystoke]

That's awesome, I bet that is some good tastin water. Great job!!!

[72BlckButy]

Awesome work Tim!

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That water sure is good. I really enjoy working on old buildings. It was cool doing all this work without a hose,just used the water flowing out. To wash out the joints I fill a bucket and toss the water at it. It was just like back them. This spring house has been the heart of the property. The first folks settled there because of that spring.

I had just gotten up on the roof and started to pull the metal roofing off the afternoon we had that earthquake. The building started shaking and rumbling with the metal making noise. I thought the roof was caving in. Mrs Meryman was up in NH and I was alone there. I thought how foolish I was,knowing the framing was questionable,to just hop up there and start tearing into it. I climbed down kinda shook up and checked it all out from inside and everything seamed good enough. I made a note of where the soft spots would be and figured I'd be careful around there. I cautiously climbed back up and started back at pulling the metal off. Just when I started feeling comfortable the same thing happened again! I climbed down again,shook up again,and checked again. I went back up again and just went at it real slow. I started wondering,as strange as it would be,if we might have had us a little earthquake right there. The property is near a major river with some prominent rock outcroppings...a fairly geological area. I pondered if maybe I should contact the NGS and let them know,just for their records. It wasn't until I left there that day and talked to my girlfriend I found out the east coast had had a real wing-dinger of an earthquake! And I thought just maybe I had experience some freak local event. Pretty funny.

[Sub-versive]

Nice work Tim! Good to see you still at it. Are you staying busy?

[fun in dirt]

Looks like a really neat old place. Glad they are keeping the maintenance up on it!

[OARNGESI]

Wow that place is so cool

[low'n slow]

Wow, great work.

[propanemudtruck]

that is really good work! Cool story and nice sounding place!

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Thanks for all the props. This old work is the most rewarding. I wish it was a I did. It's more than fixing up something old or keeping it maintained. It's saving a little piece of American history. This place is under a Farm Preservation Program. I was supposed to get approval for this first,but I was glad when she said her husband would have said "screw 'em" . The people from this land trust (or whatever you cal it) made their annual(?) visit not long after I got it done and they really liked it...Shoo! That's good. I don't quite get all that. They must pay her taxes or something.

Originally Posted by Sub-versive

Nice work Tim! Good to see you still at it. Are you staying busy?

Thanks! And,not really. This pace has been my subsistence with very little else mixed in all year and I'm about caught up. I had a decent insurance job through a friend last spring that really helped. But,just a couple hundred bucks here,a few hundred there. It's full-time effort to come up with a part-time job...at best.

Here are pictures from when I first got there in '10:

[Clyde65]

That is cool, I love those old farm houses!

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Me too. The section on the left is hand-hewn log. She burns a fire every night in the fireplace. Today I have to repair the hearth,some bricks are loose. The section on the right was added on and that whole lower area is the kitchen on the left and steps down to an eating area by the bay window. That's really her everything corner where she reads the paper,writes,and does bills. That bay window and corner had rot that I repaired after this picture. I moved the downspout to outside. I redid the bathroom in the basement. Termites had eaten at the floor built over a slab. Nothing fancy,just got it back to working order.

[72ironmike]

Tim, I just found this section for the first time. Very, very cool. I love stone work. Where did you learn ? Mike.

[cam.man67]

Hey tim, where was that spring house? It looks familiar.

[Aedan]

Well
this house is very good.Yours efforts are also good.Red roof is looking so awesome.
Thanks for sharing these pics.

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Originally Posted by 72ironmike

Tim, I just found this section for the first time. Very, very cool. I love stone work. Where did you learn ? Mike.

HGTV...LOL! Naw,I don't know. I've seen it done a lot on houses I was working on over the years and just gave it a shot.

Originally Posted by cam.man67

Hey tim, where was that spring house? It looks familiar.

It's down the road near Ashton on Tucker Lane in Montgomery County down near the Patuxent River. It's a little piece of history time has left alone. That whole Sandy Spring/Ashton/Highland area is full of history. It's a lot like what you see all over Frederick County. I've redone some spring houses out your way on Quebec School Rd and Marker Rd.,come to think of it.

[Lippyp]

Nice, the stonework is a lot like my house in France. Did you use lime mortar to repoint it as thats almost certainly what it would have been back then, more flexible than using portland cement and it breathes.

[72lb4x4]

Thanks for posting this. I lived in old, historic houses as a kid.