eBook

English

"April 2006."

The City of Steamboat Springs commissioned the architectural firm of Humphries Poli Architects, P.C. of Denver, Colorado to prepare maintenance plans for five historic buildings administered by the City. The resulting maintenance manual and individual building plans are intended to serve as a model for other communities across the state of Colorado. Research for this project was conducted nationwide and examined successful building maintenance programs for both large and small historic buildings. Principal consultants in preparing the maintenance plan are Jane Crisler and Erika Warzel. The preparation of this conservation maintenance plan was funded by a grant from the State Historical Fund from the State of Colorado.

Of the many processes used to "preserve" an historic building, maintenance is almost always the most effective and least destructive. Although most people recognize this fact, the vast majority of historic preservation efforts focus on saving buildings once they begin to fail, rather than preventing the failure from occurring in the first place. The purpose of this manual is to inform owners about techniques for maintaining existing historic buildings and alert them to common problems of typical building systems.