Have you done all the research you can online and now need to access information housed at the library but the physical building is closed? The Dallas History & Archives Division, located the seventh floor of the main branch of the Dallas Public Library, offers virtual research at this time. Email them with the information on what you are researching and they will look up information for you!

Well, we intended to get this newsletter out last week and we all know how last week went! I hope that everyone survived the storm and without any or much damage. It was certainly an unprecedented weather event the likes of which we haven’t seen before in Texas!

My house in Oak Cliff suffered power outages off and on from Sunday through Wednesday afternoon. After a night mostly without power, I woke up Tuesday morning to a house that was 37 degrees which was thankfully the coldest it got in the house. I was lucky that the pipes in my 1941 house held with only two freezing up, which were able to be thawed out. I know of many people that weren’t so lucky including several board members of Preservation Dallas who had plumbing related storm damage. Plumbers and plumbing supplies are definitely in exponential demand right now! Thankfully the Wilson House and the other houses in the Wilson Block came through without any damage. The power and heat stayed on all week and Meadows staff checked on the buildings to make sure things were okay.

Historic houses in Texas, unlike those in the north, are not meant for such extreme cold for a lengthy period of time. The majority of our historic houses are on a pier and beam foundation with lots of uninsulated area around pipes in the crawl space under the house. The only thing to help combat the extreme cold like we had, or just regular cold, is to cover foundation vents to try keep out as much of the cold air as possible. But do remember to uncover those vents in the spring as the air movement under the house will help to keep moisture from building up when it gets hot and humid.

My house has cast stone air vents in the foundation and each winter I put a piece of thin sheet metal over the vent screen to plug the opening to help keep the cold air from entering under the house. It is simple and cheap as I just got a roll of thin metal flashing at the hardware store and cut it into squares just a little larger than the vent opening. Once cut, I just push the squares into the opening and the slightly larger size holds them tight by compression bending the metal flashing in the opening. In the spring I pop them out with a screwdriver and store them for the next winter. In a pinch if you need to cover up vents when cold weather is approaching, a piece of wood will work to lean against the vent just to stop the cold breeze from blowing under the house.

Another way to help your pipes in an uninsulated space is to wrap them with foam insulation which you can get at the hardware store. That will take more time and expense to complete than covering vents and require one to crawl around in a tight space under the house, but it will help your pipes to be insulated from the cold and will help keep the hot water hotter when traveling from the water heater to the faucet throughout the year.

Being in a warm climate, historic houses here were not well insulated when they were built as they were designed to breathe and expel heat rather than trap it in, especially before air conditioning. That is why when you open up exterior walls you typically won’t find insulation in a historic house. If you are doing renovation work and have removed your sheet rock on an exterior wall you can add insulation, just be sure to add insulation that is breathable so that moisture can pass through it. There is also a method of blowing insulation into walls through small holes in the sheetrock; however, that tends to settle over time in the wall cavity providing insulation for only the lower portion of the wall. An easy and great place to add insulation is the attic, whether that is blown in or batt insulation rolled between the ceiling joists. That will also help during the hot summer to provide a barrier from your air conditioned space to the hot space of your attic.

The winter storm last week was certainly an unusual and devastating one. The destruction to some buildings was extreme such as what happened at the Hall of State. It was so sad to hear about the damage to the building and it could have been much worse if not for the speed at which DHS staff and Phoenix I were able to get into the building in order to get the water out and stabilize systems. They did an incredible job and I thank them so much for their dedication in getting to the building so quickly in the midst of an incredible winter storm. If it was not for their quick action, more of the incredibly important historic building would have been damaged. The damage can be repaired and nothing was lost, so that is good news. Thankfully we have thawed out from the winter storm and let’s hope we don’t have a repeat of Uri!

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