Have a seat!

The Elm Court garden has a new addition- a bistro table and seating for four. Joe Kolman noted that our evenings could be spent outdoors if only there was a nice place to relax after work. Our building is lucky enough to have some undeveloped land along the fence and set about finding the right table and chairs for this location. The residents of 34-50 all agreed the spot would be just right for the table, and wanted to make it available for all of our neighbors as well.

Joe C. and Joe K. cleared the ground, put down some nice red cedar mulch and set up our new garden attraction. We relocated a couple of hostas so nobody has to jump over a plant to get a seat, and all the residents inaugurated the new seating with a couple of bottles of champagne. Since then, a few inquisitive souls passed by, read the welcoming message and have tested it out. Mothers and their children, people with a newspaper and cup of coffee and even a toy doll have been observed enjoying the peaceful garden views from our table. It's a real treat to have a nice spot to sit in the shade on a warm summer's day, and this little table and chairs makes it more fun than ever to enjoy our garden.

So far, it's a hit! The table and chairs are foldable and easily stored so they can go inside in the fall. Stop by anytime and relax in comfort! Our house is happy to provide some comfortable seating in our little 'bay' for all Elm Court residents to enjoy. Summer doesn't get any better than this!

Apartment for sale in a LOVELY area!

After nearly 21 years, Joe has put apartment 42 up for sale. Amazingly, a buyer who was looking through jackson heights life forum turned out to be very interested, and the rest is history. It's nice to be able to sell through local contacts, and avoid the high commissions and the quirky market that is the Jackson Heights real estate climate. With a youtube video on the web, buyers had an easy way to see the place, and it is currently in contract. We welcome the buyers, and soon they will be meeting the board and hopefully be accepted into our little community.

Like it was in 1989, Jackson heights is still an 'up and coming' community with an increasingly diverse group of residents and the wealth of shops and restaurants that offer up beautiful items and tasty treats from around the world. New people who used to consider only Manhattan or perhaps Park Slope are learning the real estate in the community is high quality, with prices that are much better than what you'd get in other communities.

We've also got wildlife, with doves that love to nest on your window sill, hawks flying overhead, and an occasional racoon rummaging through the trash bins.

It's a historic district, meaning the residents got together and petitioned the city to put into place regulations that will keep the housing stock in good condition, and prevent people from paving over the front lawn for parking, or painting the house pink. Here's a pic from when our apartment windows were replaced a couple of years ago, it took longer to get the permits than to complete the job, but for that one day when the windows were out, the view was really, really cool!

Here's a copy of the video, along with some nice neighborhood photos. If you want to live in a place where people know and care for each other, and live in wonderfully historic pre-war homes, Jackson Heights is the place to be!

There's a wealth of information about our community in the NY times, they profile the neighborhood regularly. Many community organizations and groups organize neighborhood cleanups, plant flowers through the garden club, and arrange the tours of the private parks every June. If you're in the area, you can take a walking tour and visit our private garden in a couple of weeks. It's beautiful this time of year in Jackson Heights!

January Plumbing News

The work continues! Little by little, the oldest and weakest pipes in the building are making themselves known. Mr. Simpson, the plumber, is undoubtedly quite happy we like to repair leaks before they become more serious.

Today's jobs included a new "lead bend" which connects the nasty end of the toilet to the main waste riser, and some steam vent repairs on the lobby radiator. He also inquired about the pump, and I will say that it seems hot water arrives more quickly in my bathroom than it did before, let me know if you disagree.

In the middle of steam heat season, there are some knocks and bangs from our radiators and steam pipes. This was discussed with Mr. Simpson, he noted a few things. First, steam vent valves may fail over time. They can be easily unscrewed and replaced and as they are available in all local hardware stores, it's a simple task to do. If your valve hisses or "spits", or you have a radiator that takes too long to heat up, consider a new vent valve.

For banging and clanking noises, make sure your radiator valves are fully open. Steam is an "all or nothing" system, and if the valve is not all the way open, condensation will collect and cause the rattling and banging noises during the steam cycle. Sometimes, the oldest valves will have some loose or broken parts, and will make lots of noise when the steam goes on and off.

He also advised me to make sure the radiators are properly pitched. The valve end needs to be lower than the vent end, to let the condensate run out and back down to the boiler. Over the years, the constant movement can push the radiator's feet into the wood, and the radiator will be out of alignment. You can cure this by placing a small flat piece of wood under the radiator's feet farthest away from the control valve, and this should restore the pitch.

After all of this, he did say that steam is not a 'silent' system and he's never seen one that is completely quiet. By following some of his advice, you can make your radiators quieter and more efficient. There's a website http://www.heatinghelp.com/ that has lots of interesting steam heat information, if you really want to know more!

is it hot yet?

Today, the hot water recirculating pump was replaced. Our plumber noted the old one had a couple of it's propeller blades broken off, and simply wasn't pumping. He also thought it had survived far longer than they are designed to, and so a new one was installed. Shut off valves were installed too, on both sides of the pump. This will allow the water flow to the thing to be repaired/replaced without having to shut off water to the whole building, and will allow it to be shut off if it ever sprung a leak. You can see the work in the boiler room, right at the door to exit to the alley, just look up!The function is pretty simple, it will pull hot water slowly thorough the pipes, and should seriously shorten the wait time for hot water at any particular sink. It won't be instantaneous, this is a slow flowing pump, but we expect to see an improvement over what we had before.

As occurs when the house water supply is drained and air enters the pipes, expect some brown water, some spitting from the taps, and if there was sediment or rust in your plumbing, the little aerator or strainer at the end of the faucet may have to be cleaned. Let's hope the cold water problem is a thing of the past now!

Do we really need a computerized bookkeeping system?

After talking with Lolita about this, I no longer think we do. We can certainly teach her how to put her monthly reports into Excel, but the bookkeeper takes those and produces the yearly reports we need. It doesn't seem to be that complicated.

Anybody else have any thoughts?

it's a group blog now!

The holidays are over, our house tree is lying in the front yard, on it's way to being chopped into mulch for spreading over a city park somewhere. A short walk around the neighborhood is short, cause it's so cold. And here at the co-op blog, it's becoming a group affair.

Our tenant-owners got their email invites today, and once you get a google password, you're an author! That should make things interesting. I Can't wait to see what happens next!

Dumbwaiters care and feeding

Our Dumbwaiter is a luxury that few apartment houses can match. Used primarily to dispatch trash, but in the old days it got more use. Deliveries from neighborhood merchants were placed on the dumbwaiter, along with firewood and various packages, saving us from having to deal with delivery people.

Nowadays, some of the historic district co-ops have abandoned them, but we consider it indispensable. Operated manually with an original 1920's rope pulley system, they really meet our needs. There aren't a lot of people who can maintain the things, and so we do our best to take care of the minor issues ourselves. That Once or twice a year, the pulleys need basic lubrication, these are photos of how to do this task.

NOTE- want to see these pictures larger? Right click and hit 'save target as' and save it to a file for future reference. When saved to your computer hard drive, they open up in a larger size.

On the roof, inside the shaftway, is a giant pulley that, when spun by the rope, lifts the car up and down. The mechanism is a wood cradle holding the rod, which has the pulley and a primitive break system, so a heavy load won't cause the thing to plummet to the basement.

Periodically, this mechanism needs oiling. You'll know when the rope is so hard to pull you are sweating by the time the car is at the 2nd floor. So, when this happens, it's time to lubricate. Get the little key for the dumbwaiter doors from the rack in the meter room, open the doors and look inside. You'll see the large round wheel with a smaller wheel behind it (that's the brake). Generously squirt WD-40 on the rod that attaches to the wooden ends, and reach behind the large wheel to squirt the oil into the openings on the smaller one. Pull the ropes up and down, they should be measurably easier to operate. If not, repeat squirting the oil. For some reason, the dumbwaiter serving apts 2. 22. 32 42 side stiffens up sooner, the other one is usually easier to pull in general.

This maintenance is required every 6 months to a year, or when the ropes become hard to pull. All in all, easy maintenance job that saves the house money bringing in an expert to squirt the same can of oil. These photos are from last week, when I oiled the pulleys on both sides.

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.