Published: November 06, 2009 10:49 am      

Old courthouse integrity put to test

It’s important to determine the ability of brick to endure the freezing-thawing process typical of Midwestern winters.

That’s what University of Illinois student Julie Rosen was doing outside the old Effingham County Courthouse Thursday.

Rosen, a senior civil engineering major, was conducting RILEM tests on selected bricks at the 137-year-old building to determine the brick’s ability to stand up under winter conditions. RILEM is an acronym for a French organization that roughly translates into International Union of Testing & Research Laboratories for Materials and Structures.

Rosen attends a graduate-level class in building conservation and sustainability at the U of I’s Urbana-Champaign campus. Class members have been studying the old courthouse as part of their classwork.

Instructor Mike Jackson, visiting professor at the U of I and chief architect at the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, said the class studies methods used to preserve old buildings such as the courthouse.

“Each year, I pick a historic building to study,” Jackson said. “The old courthouse was an excellent candidate.

“We divide the building into different elements, such as brick, stone, roofing, and others,” Jackson said. “The outcome will be a technical report on each element studied.”

Jackson said this fall was a particularly appropriate time to study the old courthouse because of ongoing restoration efforts. A local group would like to convert the old building into a museum and cultural center.

“This research effort to greatly assist what they are trying to do,” he said, adding that copies of the research would be shared with restoration architect Dennis Langley, an Effingham native who has offered to work on the restoration pro bono.

A group of Jackson’s students visited the courthouse earlier this fall. Thursday, the only students there were Rosen and graduate student Brian Schertz, who had hoped to study truss strength in the courthouse attic. But Schertz couldn’t get coordinated with county maintenance staff in time to get much of his work done, so he spent part of the pair’s time watching Rosen conduct her tests.

In a RILEM test, a glass tube is attached to a brick and filled with water. The speed at which the water goes into the brick determines its porosity — or its ability to absorb water.

Rosen said there’s a happy medium between too porous and not porous enough.

“Each brick should have some inherent porous space so if water gets in, it can easily evaporate,” she said. “But there’s a fine line between not enough and too much.

“If there’s too much, the porous spaces can interconnect and water can be trapped inside,” Rosen added. “When that water freezes and thaws, it can affect the structural integrity of the brick.”

Rosen, a graduate of Lafayette High School in suburban St. Louis, said she became interested in building preservation when attending a program at Washington University the summer before her senior year.

“I’m interested in preservation as a career, but I’m studying civil engineering to gain technical knowledge.”

Bill Grimes can be reached at 217-347-7151 ext. 132 or bill.grimes@effinghamdailynews.com.