Hi Erin,

When I was at Colonial Williamsburg I had years of experience in
dealing with architectural and HVAC restorations in historic and
reconstructed building with historic furnishings and collections, as
well as museum redo's.

Collections are most at risk during rennovations. So I would advise
that you find a safe, stable offsite storage for your furnishings and
collections during rennovations. This is a major thing but it will
also allow you an opportunity to do some important work with the
entire collection in terms of revisiting cataloguing, research,
photography, conservation etc. Another thing you could do is to
arrange at another musuem or venue to have a significant part of the
collections out on exhibit while the rennovations are being done.

As always when a new HVAC system is installed you really need to give
it time to settle in and to work out any adjustments and issues that
may arise in tuning the system and making sure it is stable. Any time
you change the dynamics of the external envirnment vs. the internal
one with an HVAC system you walk a fine line between the preservation
of the hisotric structure and the collections - so the new system and
the building and the interior environment all need to be heavily
monitored for a time.

Do you have a staff conservator or a consulting conservator on the project?

Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Conservator
Los Angeles, CA

On 9/13/07, Erin Crissman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello List:
>
> Within the next 6-12 months, Historic Cherry Hill will be embarking on a
> large restoration project on our 1787 historic house.  There are three major
> areas of work: window re-build and/or repair, HVAC design and installation,
> plaster repair and wallpaper replacement.
>
> My question for you all is in regard to the process and care of exhibited
> collections during that process. If anyone has experience they would like to
> share, I would certainly welcome it.  We are going to be making field trips
> to two large local historic sites who recently completed restoration, but
> wanted to get a message out further afield to collect as many responses as
> possible. Thank you!
>
>
> --
> Erin Elizabeth Crissman
> Curator
> Historic Cherry Hill
> 523 1/2 South Pearl St.
> Albany, NY 12202
> www.historiccherryhill.org
>  [log in to unmask]
> p.518.434.4791
> f.518.434.4806
> =========================================================
> Important Subscriber Information:
>
>  The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
> http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain
> detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line
> e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message
> should read "help" (without the quotes).
>
>  If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
> [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff
> Museum-L" (without the quotes).
>
>

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).