Look ma, no leaks!

Our building received a new roof and a thorough waterproofing in 2006-2007. These pics show installation of corrugated metal sheets along the brick portion of the roof and elevator and dumbwaiter shafts. Originally coated with a thick black tar, there were too many small leaks that let water into the brickwork (and then down into the apartments). Jon Wickers, owner of a prestigious building restoration firm (who has a long relationship with the co-op) did a complete evaluation to see where our leaks were coming from. He discovered the tar coating actually trapped moisture inside the 2 layers of brick, and designed this system to cover the side and top of the masonry with an aluminum skin.

The first step involved literally slicing into the brickwork to insert a thick sheet of copper flashing. This ensured any water would drip down, hit this and end up on the roof instead of heading down through the entire brick walls of the house. Once this was installed, the bricks were cleaned up and the aluminum skin was mounted.

The historic district required nothing this modern be visible from the street, so the terra-cotta front portion got a thorough, but old-fashioned waterproofing, with sandblasting, re-grouting and pointing.

As you can tell, this job was done in the fall, when the workers won't collapse from the heat! The following spring, a layer of white roofing material was laid down, to complete the job. Air vents were installed to let hot air out, and the original skylights were pronounced good enough to be repaired instead of replaced, thanks to their good old-fashioned thick glass and galvanized steel frames. Unfortunately, the dumbwaiter "mini" skylights were too far gone, and were capped off, leaving our dumbwaiters in the dark for the first time in 80 years. It was a small price to pay for waterproofing, though. The top floor apartment owners were able to throw away their rain buckets and umbrellas, the operation was a success!

You can see the brick dust after a stout saw blade sliced through the tar and a few inches into the bricks. In this slot, the copper flashing was inserted into the wall. The horizontal metal strips will support the new skin.

The cylindrical air vent lets hot air out without a fan, and allows any moisture to escape.

All done, the new white aluminum covering should last a long, long time. Later, white metal caps will cover the top stone "cap" of the brickwork, keeping any water out of our walls.

The elevator shaft receives it's metal walls. As the work was being done, it was noticed that the rain gutter on this structure was mis-placed, and during a storm was directing some water into the air shafts (the arrow shaped appendage) that ventilate the elevator and your sun-room closets. The mystery of how rainwater ended up in the lower floor apartments every now and then was solved!

The stairs to the roof fully encased, even the 4 fireplace flues got the treatment, to keep any water out!

Here's the 'before' shot, with the old layers of bubbling tar shown. Each 'bubble' drained out really old water when they were pierced, this section of the old tar was not removed because it was only covering the chimney flues.
You'd never guess from the street that we have a white energy efficient water repellant roof up here. The terra-cotta on the left was later re-grouted and any chips or cracks sealed with a color-matched stone cement.
The TV antennae were removed from the wall and attached to the plumbing vent, not even a screw or nail was allowed to pierce the buildings new skin. On the ground is the aluminum cap for the old dumbwaiter skylights, which were rusted beyond repair.

In the beginning

Here are the brochures that were printed up before the first building in Elm Court was constructed. It was given out by the Queensboro Corporation and also inserted into the daily newspapers, and were designed to promote all of the deluxe features of our beautiful co-op apartments.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the workings of our building

Here is a photo guide to our basement, taken during the winter of 2008 by Rich Perline, Mike Shaffer and Joe Chiarella. As the maintenance committee, we were inspired to do this photo survey when a pipe burst in the middle of the night and nobody knew where the shut off was!

When you click on the pics, they'll blow up to a size big enough to see the details if you're using internet explorer, or right click and save to your computer.

Heat, Hot Water, Steam, Electricity and other vital parts of our building are explained on each photo. This post is the basement from one end to the other.

Just inside the door to the boiler room, look up to see the 3 valves that send hot and cold water to each apartment.

Two gas hot-water tanks provide hot water to us all. Sometimes, on a windy day the pilot lights will go out. You'll usually realize this when there is no hot water!

The photo above shows the location of the "heat-timer" which decides how much steam to send up in the winter. A mechanical wonder, it gives us a certain amount of steam per hour, depending on whether it is day or night and what the outside temperature is. The thermometer is in the front garden, so if it's not below 53 degrees down at that spot, we don't get any heat in the spring and fall. Newer heat timers have more temperature sensors, but ours is not going to be replaced till it gives out, it has been reliable for many years.

The timer for the front lawn sprinklers and the timer for the outside alley and back garden lights is here too. The lower photo shows the shut off valve for the lawn sprinkler. Each fall, the valve is closed and the little drain faucet opened, to let the water run out to keep the plastic valve outside from bursting in the cold. In the spring, the process is reversed.

This pipe vents the steam from the boiler, collects the water that used to be steam and drains it back towards the boiler. In a "one pipe" steam heat system like ours, the water is used over and over again, as steam is only lost through leaky valves or stuck vents. The gold vent on top of this pipe lets in some air when the boiler is off, if air can't come and go, the steam won't travel through the building. Steam generated in our boiler reaches a whopping .75 pound of pressure, enough to fill nearly every radiator in the building at the same time. The control on this pipe tells the boiler to shut off the gas when it is nice and hot.

Because the boiler does lose water, we have a 'sight glass' on the side to tell us how much water is in there. It should always show 1-2" of water when the boiler is off, and the water level can jump up and down when the heat is on. The gizmo on the left is the fill and drain valve, which automatically keeps the boiler filled to the right amount. Once in a while, it won't and the boiler can over-fill. You'll notice this when the first floor apartments get no heat and have water squirting out of the steam vents!

The drain valve allows you to remove the water at the very bottom of the boiler, usually a rich brown color due to the rust and sediments in the system. Letting a bucket or two out each week keeps the boiler working properly.

The photo above shows one of the many ways to shut off the gas to the furnace. Even though nobody in the house ever remembers a time when we needed to turn off the gas, the cover at the end of the boiler can be lifted and pulled off, revealing the valve as shown. The main gas valve for the entire building is in the meter room, that one needs a pipe wrench to shut it, because it is big and heavy!

If the boiler ever needs turning off in an emergency, just flip the switch shown in the photo below. There is a main boiler shut off near the elevator in the basement. It's not near the boiler just in case it was ever unsafe to go into the boiler room. Again, nobody ever remembers having to use this switch, but to be safe, the city made us paint the box red and put up a sign. The boiler can be shut off by flipping the light switch on the boiler itself, or by shutting off the circuit breaker or heat timer. If you want the heat on, check all 4 of these switches before giving up and calling for help.

Next on our tour- HOT WATER! Our building has a three pipe system, where the hot water is always circulating through the pipes slowly. This saves time in the morning, when you don't have to run the water forever to wait for the hot water to arrive (on the 4th floor, it can be a while). The hot water goes to the top floor and then the third (center pipe in photos) carries it back to the hot water tank.

Due to the age of the pipes and some suspect plumbing repairs in the past, this system isn't what it used to be. The above pump used to insure we never had to wait for hot water. We've scheduled a consultation with a 'master plumber' and hopefully this little problem will soon be remedied. Below, the three water pipes are viewed inside the laundry room, on their way to the kitchens.

In the laundry room, in addition to connections for the washer, dryer and superintendant's kitchen, the valves on the ceiling send water up to the kitchens of apt 1, 21, 31 and 41. That black pipe brings the kitchen water down to the sewer.

The photo below, in the hallway outside the laundry room, shows the same system of valves, these carry water to the front bathrooms in Apts. 1, 21, 31 and 41. A leaky valve here burst open during the summer of 2008, giving the basement a long awaited floor washing! You can see the shiny new valves put in after this incident, not unexpected as the place is 85 years old.

The next photo shows the water supply to the "back" bathrooms and showers. The pipes go down the hallway into the space above the super's ceiling on their way to the bathrooms.The same three pipe system is used, and on the way, the super's bathroom gets hot and cold water from these pipes.

While we're in the hallway, this pipe sends water to the garden hose just inside the front alleyway iron gate. While we don't have a hose there, the pipe can still freeze in winter, so we turn the water off. BUT- this valve has been replaced by a newer one inside this storage room (which belongs to apt #1) that also has a drain valve. At that point, near the window inside the storage room, the OTHER lawn sprinkler valve is located. Each fall, the water is shut off and the drains opened on both sides in order to keep the valves from freezing. The sprinkler timer is shut off, and everyting takes a few months off till spring.

If a valve is broken in spring (these things happen!), water will be squirting everywhere outside, except it won't be from the sprinklers! Then, it's time to unscrew the valve and travel to Home Depot on Long Island, because the ones in NYC do not carry any sprinkler supplies (don't ask) and have someone find you a replacement. They come in all kinds of sizes, and getting one with the right size fittings is a job for a Home Depot or Lowes employee!

In the next photo, we are in the alley. With stairs at each end, water sometimes comes in, so these drains need to be kept clean. There is a cover under the cover, so you'll have to pull both out, make sure it is not clogged and shoot some water from the hose in there to be sure. Every few years, they will become slow and not drain properly, then it's time for roto-rooter.

This water drains into our sewer system, while the rainwater from the roof has it's own pipe that comes down along the sides of the elevator shaft and exits the front of the building and discharges into the street. Many repavings of the street have left little pitch left, the street is higher than the pipe for some of our neighbors, but the city promises to grind down the street before the next repaving, to make sure our drains keep draining.

Next stop---- The Meter Room!

The photo above shows the "master" circuit breakers for all the units. Each apartment has it's own circuit breakers in the kitchen, but these here function to shut off the power to the apartment itself. Most apartments have 2 or 3 circuit breakers on this panel. The elevator has a few, and the ones marked "doctor" are for apt #1 (where a doctors office was located years ago)

If you ever have lights flickering, or just not working, come down here and flip your circuit breakers a couple of times.

Above is the house gas meter for the furnace. It has a shut off valve, but unless you've got a giant wrench, you wouldn't be able to turn this thing off. Should you think it ever needs shutting off, call Con Edison. Gas is not something we should fool around with!

Below, right inside the door to the meter room, you'll find the equipment for the doorbells and buzzers for the dumbwaiters, and the front door electric locks. We've got 2 doors, so the yellow thing in the photo is a relay that opens the doors in sequence, so your guest can get right in. Some malfunctions in these systems are caused by gremlins, so if the bells dont ring or the doors don't buzz, try turning the power on and off here, or pull that white transformer out of it's plug for a moment. You never know....

Finally, just for fun, in an old house there are lots of switches that don't do anything and alarms that never ring, along with some pipes that just seem to start and stop everywhere. Here's a couple of ours-

This is a great link for anyone interested in learning about an old time steam heating system:

Joe's favorite steam heat website heatinghelp.com tells you more than you would ever want to know about the ancient art of steam heating. Although most parts are durable and can be supplied by local plumbers, this site has loads of references and is interesting, too.