Contractors in race with winter weather [The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, Va.]

Dec. 08--Habalis Construction in Fredericksburg was already so overbooked the morning of Aug. 23 that owner Jay Holloway had discussed ways to deal with it at a staff meeting.

Then, two hours later, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake rocked Louisa County. The impact radiated up and down the East Coast, toppling chimneys and sending cracks rippling through brick walls and block foundations.

"Kaboom! The phone started ringing off the hook," Holloway said.

Habalis, which specializes in historic old homes, went into overdrive. It and other Fredericksburg area contractors have been busy ever since as they race to assess damage and repair buildings before winter sets in.

"We juggled staff around, brought in extra people and worked extra weekends," said Holloway, who estimated he's done close to $180,000 worth of work so far. "To be honest, I hate to admit it, it's slowed down our other work a bit."

Fred Ecker, who owns Tidewater Preservation at 601 Jackson St., said he received about 65 calls for help in Spotsylvania County alone by the day after the quake.

He brought one of his project managers back from a job in Savannah, Ga., to document damage, and had workers with bucket trucks, cherry pickers and machines that could lift pallets of material up to roof-level on the job by the afternoon of the quake.

"We've been busy since Day One," Ecker said. "We're still doing [work], especially out in the counties."

Mike Huie, who owns Abby Construction Co. at 1321 Lafayette Blvd., said his roofers and brick masons have been inundated with quake-related assignments since Aug. 23, and he has several more for them in the pipeline.

"It's hard, especially on older structures, to trust someone you don't know," he said. "That's been the problem. If I knew more people that did the quality of work that we need to have done, I'd be fine with it."

Now, as winter brings increasingly colder weather, the contractors say remaining brick work is about to grind to a halt until spring. The lime mortar used on older, softer brick takes a month to cure, and shouldn't be applied once the thermometer dips below freezing. Antifreeze can be added to the Portland cement used on new brick, Holloway said, but it still takes a couple of weeks to harden completely.

"We're getting on the edge of the time we can use both," said Ecker. "We're at that threshold. You don't want temperatures to dip below 40 degrees much of the time, and we're already at frost."

Among the projects now on hold until warmer weather is the Fredericksburg Masonic Lodge, 803 Princess Anne St. Habalis took down all four heavily damaged chimneys and has the bricks under wraps. Restoring the chimneys will cost around $40,000.

"That's a pretty big hit," said Holloway. "We're putting them back up in the spring to spread the financial burden out a little."

None of Habalis' clients had earthquake insurance, he said, and the sudden demand for scaffolding caused the price for it to climb.

"One of the companies that does some of my work had to ring crews up from North Carolina and buy additional scaffolding," Holloway said. "They're a mid-Atlantic company and are putting people up in hotels to keep up with demand. I didn't see anyone try to make an obscene profit, which was nice."

Ecker said the majority of earthquake damage was to chimneys, and his company stabilized the most severely damaged first, then went back and repaired or rebuilt them. One reconstruction technique, called "stapling," involves embedding threaded stainless steel rods shaped like oversized stables into bricks and then repointing the mortar.

Tidewater Preservation is getting ready to do work on a quake-damaged building in Heathsville and has been hired to assess damage at several historic buildings owned by the City of Fairfax, including Blenheim, a circa 1855 brick farmhouse.

"They're all over the place," Ecker said of quake-damaged buildings.

Cathy Jett: 540/374-5407

Email: cjett@freelancestar.com

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