Way back in 1929, my great grandfather built an unusual boathouse on Lake George. Ever since, the Boathouse has been a touchstone for all his descendants. It is currently owned by his grand-daughter (and my aunt) Julie, and her husband, Ken.
In 2015, Julie and Ken had the Boathouse inspected. Specifically, they were interested in the condition of the underwater parts of the foundation that are not easily visible from the surface. Not unexpectedly, the inspection indicated that substantial restoration work should be done in an expeditious manner. Since Ken and Julie have little experience working with contractors, and Karen and I have a fair amount, we were invited to act as sounding board, moral support, and comic relief throughout the process, which is still ongoing. This blog will show, primarily in pictures, the remarkable work that is underway.
First, some quick background on how the Boathouse is built. Starting from the top and moving down: the Boathouse is built around over a dozen 12×12 inch vertical timbers. These timbers in turn sit on steel plates that sit on large concrete blocks. In turn, the blocks (and we are under water now) sit on cribs, which can best be visualized as log cabins filled with stones (you’ll understand when you see the pictures a bit further down). Finally, these cribs sit on the bottom of the lake. The entire structure is built over the lake; it touches land, but does not sit on the land in any way.
The execution of this design back in the 1920’s was nearly flawless; almost 90 years later, the Boathouse is still within one inch of being perfectly level. In contrast, my house in San Jose was out of level by far more than that within three years of being completed! But after many years of a very harsh environment, some materials have simply reached the end of their expected life.
The process to repair the boathouse can be described with ease, but accomplished only with difficulty. The process is as follows:
- Lift the Boathouse just a little bit, essentially putting her on “stilts”
- Demolish and remove the old concrete
- Reinforce the cribs
- Pour new concrete
- Gently put her back down
Of course, things are complicated a bit by the fact that most of this work must be done below the surface of the lake. And in the harsh Adirondack winter!
So, now that you have the general idea, let me show you some of the details, in full technicolor…
OK, now that the water is gone, lets see what this foundation looks like!
You might be wondering how they manage to lift the Boathouse…
Now that the Boathouse has been lifted, it is time to remove the old concrete.
The Department of Environmental Conservation would not allow ANY concrete debris to be left in the lake – even though it had been in the lake for 85+ years. So, we had to figure out how to get it off the lake bottom, out of the Boathouse, and into trucks for disposal.
Once the old concrete was demolished and removed, it was time to strengthen the cribs. The cribs are held together by steel pins, which have largely corroded and weakened. They were reinforced substantially with some serious lag bolts.
Now that the cribs are solid, it is time to replace the concrete piers. Concrete technology has come quite a ways since 1929; this time steel reinforcement will be used.
It was tough to get the old concrete out, and it certainly was not easy to get the fresh concrete inside. I wish I could have been there to watch this!
For anyone who loves this Boathouse, it is truly a beautiful sight to see the lovely, smooth concrete on which she now rests.
And that’s about where she stands at the moment. Since these photos were taken, she was gently let back down onto the piers. There is plenty of work yet to do, but the end is in sight. The walkways need to be reconstructed, the rubble needs to be removed, the water needs to be pumped back in, and the coffer dam needs to be removed. But the heavy lifting, so to speak, is complete!