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Show PRESERVATION IS MAINTENANCE Wilson Martin William Morris , the founding father of historic preservation wrote in 1877 , "Stave off decay by daily care, prop up a perilous wall or mend a leaking roof, by such means as are obviously meant for support or covering and show no pretense of other art." So it is with the Stairs to Granite water wooden flume which has carried water from the Stairs Power Plant in Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Granite Power Plant at the foot of the canyon for one hundred years. For more than twenty years , Brian Smith , Utah Power and Light Division of PacifiCorp, Senior Operating Maintenance Worker , has used traditional methods to repair the leaking wooden flume. the spline between the boards. Leaks occur often by failure of Traditional material called "Oakum ," a jute dipped in water soluble oil containing bentonite, is pressed into the leaking splits using an oakum knife created from a sma ll plaster putty knife with a notch cut out. The oakum is pushed into the open jOints . This method has been used to repair joints for almost one hundred years . It i s this type of minute reparation that is often at the core of historic preservation. Sma ll traditional repairs completed in simple ways thus staving off decay by daily care. H:\WPDATA\ Preser . i s Maintenance.wpd |
