Archives Room - Official Work Thread

[Brendan Barry]

A new dedicated archive room is being built in the basement of the Percival house. The new room will be insulated, have a double layer of sheet rock for fire resistance, and seperate climate control.

[Jeff Schumaker]

It looks like you're off to a good start, Brendan.

Jeff S.

[Bob Holmes]

Terrific...badly needed until we finally get a real archives building...

[Bill Baskerville]

I am sure Linda is ecstatic.

[Carl G. Soderstrom]

I am assuming the double layer is on the outside.

And all penetrations will have fire stop calk.

Just watched a HGTV program shot just down the road (36 miles)
That rehabbed a garage fire. House was saved by fire rated walls and door.
Make sure door has closer.
House was damaged by smoke, so would be amiss to do a pressure test like
for cold/heat infiltration.
Much of what is there is not just valuable but irreplaceable.

Thanks for the pix.

[John McNamara]

My basement has historically suffered from water incursion, so I now have an exterior periphery drain feeding a sump. In the sump are two identical pumps offset vertically about an inch. The lower (primary) pump runs off conventional AC power. The upper (secondary) pump also runs off AC, but the AC comes from an inverter powered by a large deep-cycle battery that is continuously trickle-charged by battery monitors. There is a "Watt-minder" monitor in the AC feed to the secondary pump. I check this periodically to make sure that the secondary pump has not been running unbeknownst to me.

This whole rig has keep my basement dry though power failures of more than five hour duration, and I highly recommend a similar arrangement for the archive room. It would probably even work if the local fire department poured a few hundred gallons of water on my house with the power off (not that I want to try that )

-John M

[James Patten]

We have a sump pump in the basement - and we know that it works, because earlier this year somebody unplugged it and during a storm the basement filled with a couple of inches of water.

[John McNamara]

We have a sump pump in the basement - and we know that it works, because earlier this year somebody unplugged it and during a storm the basement filled with a couple of inches of water.

Indeed. What if CMP unplugs it?

[Ed Lecuyer]

What if CMP unplugs it?

Then our new (on order, not yet arrived or installed) generator will kick in until CMP turns the power back on.

[Bill Reidy]

Electrician and member/volunteer Josh Recave busy at work today wiring the new archives and gift shop storage rooms in the basement of the Percival House.


While archivist Linda Zollers was busy upstairs cataloging new additions to our archives.

[John McNamara]

Looking at Linda in our existing archives room, you can see why we need a new one.

[Mike Fox]

[Mike Fox]

[Ted Miles]

The space looks very professional. It shold be a good home for the books and magazines I have sent to the WW&F Railway Museum.

Ted Miles, WW&F Life Member

[James Patten]

For those wondering about the hanging wires, there were junction boxes on the floor joists above the basement.  The boxes were removed before the room construction got to cover over the joists, and the boxes will be reinstalled when our electrician revisits us.  Meanwhile they are taped off.

Linda moved in yesterday, with tables and shelving, and moved down some archival boxes from upstairs.  She's being very deliberate and thoughtful about what goes in, as the archives will sharing space with gift shop storage when that moves into the basement while the gift shop building is lowered.