Maintenance IS Preservation

             It’s an old truism that a bad economy is good for preservation. When there’s no money for erecting new buildings, neither is there money for demolishing old ones.             This is true, but only in part. While a bad economy may indeed mean less new construction, it generally also means that there’s less money for maintenance, either. It’s easy to cut upkeep in order to pay for groceries or to keep from laying off the staff, and perfectly understandable.            But without maintenance buildings don’t survive. When the economy finally does recover, there will once again be opportunities for construction, and un-maintained buildings will be prime candidates for demolition. “It’s just too far gone to keep,” will be the excuse. So for the next couple of years, one task for preservationists will be to fight for basic maintenance. It’s a difficult task, since maintenance work simply isn’t as dramatic as new construction or a dramatic restoration, and the consequences of neglect usually aren’t immediately visible. Something that’s just a little run-down can always wait, but one day it will be past just a little run-down. A stitch in time saves nine.             Preservation organizations need to spend more time encouraging and assisting owners and stewards to develop good maintenance habits. The Connecticut Trust’s Historic Preservation Technical Assistance Grants (HPTAG) can, for instance, be used to fund a condition assessment for an historic building, complete with priorities for addressing issues. The grants could also be used to set up a maintenance schedule tailored to a particular building’s needs. Although the Trust doesn’t give grants for actual construction, other funders might promote restoration grants that can be used for maintenance, or modify their guidelines to allow maintenance chores that do not rise to the level of ‘restoration.’             Owners and stewards of historic buildings will find that, while maybe not dramatic, maintenance does have its satisfactions. As Stewart Brand writes in How Buildings Learn: “The romance of maintenance is that it has none. Its joys are quiet ones. There is a certain high calling in the steady tending to a ship, to a garden, to a building. One is participating physically in a deep, long life.”  RESOURCESJohn Leeke, “Controlling Old House Maintenance,” Old-House Journal, July-August 1993 (can be found at www.cttrust.org: click on “Restoration Help,” then “Maintaining Your Historic Home.”) The State of Illinois Historic Preservation Agency has a sample building inspection form and maintenance schedule to download from http://www.illinoishistory.gov/ps/maintenance.htm   Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: What Happens after They’re Built (Penguin Books, 1994), chapter 8, “The Romance of Maintenance.” Connecticut Trust Technical Assistance Grants: http://www.cttrust.org/index.cgi/1190 Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, Historic Restoration Fund: http://www.cultureandtourism.org/cct/cwp/view.asp?a=2127&q=317350#HRF