News
Renovations at the General House
Posted on by fscadmin
In the course of the last few years, issues have emerged regarding the maintenance of the general house in Rome. After 70 years of service, various aspects of the house have needed updating and repair.
Due to the availability of a government grant for external works, the administration took the step of renovating the exterior of the house. A number of concerns had begun to emerge including falling masonry, damage to the exterior, and apparent voids in the walls of the building. Taking advantage of the government bonus enabled us to completely renovate and restore the exterior of the building in the course of 2021.
Once the exterior was complete, all the insect screens were replaced and the shutters repaired across the entire building.
Another concern emerged with old pipes, made of metal, failing around the property. Seventy years of use and rust were taking their toll. Some problems were related to the heating system where the pipes actually run inside the masonry walls or in the ground under the building. After a number of major repairs, there needed to be a major renovation – the pipes needed to be somewhere other than embedded in the walls. Also, some aspects of previous repairs were found to have not complied with government regulations. So, we had both repair and renovation to do.
It has been a long process and after almost a year, the central framework of pipes is complete for both heating and cooling in the house. This system served the renovated third floor of the house this past summer. Today, we are completing new pipe systems running down the corridors on each of the other three levels and the chapel. This will provide heating this winter and we will look to plan for the possibility of cooling systems for the entire building in the future, constantly looking for energy efficiencies in the process.
Like all old buildings, when you touch one thing there is a cascade of other issues which emerge. We continue to be surprised but will hopefully bring the major projects to completion in the near future.
