Hello Friends! The Building Inspector came to look in the attic and when he saw all of the "barn beam" construction, he said being a public building and with it's age, it was beyond his expertise. He did however, give his personal opinion after looking it over. Several of the Mortise joints have come loose and there is a lot of pressure on the beam that runs north and south. In fact, that beam is covered with a metal plate and it is bent toward the east indicating a lot of pressure on it. We discovered another beam that we hadn't seen before that is pushing upwards and has caused and large bump out on the north side roof. The whole structure is very unstable in his opinion and recommended an Engineer that knows about this type of construction and who will tell us what needs to be done. He felt in the meantime, it was unsafe for people to be in there. That was only his personal opinion and not official, but I know Phil has inspected many buildings and knows what he is looking for. He did look at the foundation and felt it was ok and the crack that is there was likely caused by water at some point not getting away from the Church. That has been resolved, so he recommended tuck pointing that crack.
We have a name of a good Stuctural Engineer who specializes in this area and he will be called tomorrow to make an appointment. Taking pictures is almost impossible to give the full affect of what is up there. You almost need to see the whole thing and how it ties together. It's just too dark to get accurate pictures that anyone could do any studies by. I will be talking to the Trustees to see if we can quickly get the pews, pulpit, cross, sound system etc. out of there. The piano is scheduled to be moved on Wednesday. It's just not something we can do ourselves without taking a chance of ruining it. I'm going to recommend that we at least cover the piano with plywood until it is moved. Not sure if that will do a lot of good, but it's the best I can think of at this point.
So, it appears this may be a long process of our building becoming safe again. I'm glad the Lord looked over us so we could Worship in there one last time last Sunday. Please pray for all of this process as it continues.
Bob
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