A quick update on the progress of the lightning strike and masonry repairs

I'm happy to report much progress has been made on the behind the scenes work required for this project. The Church has hired Applied Building Sciences to complete the design work, structural engineering, and material recommendations for this project. ABS is a very capable company in the field of historic repair work and as such, has a large work load. Second Presbyterian is now on their active project list and early last week I spent several hours with 3 structural engineers from ABS in the very top of the bell tower. This was done to accurately record the damage and existing conditions, information which will be a necessity for obtaining our building permits from the City of Charleston.

All subcontractors for the project have visited the site and provided preliminary bids for their specific areas of expertise. I continuously provide the subcontractors with progress updates and inform them of any findings that ABS uncovers. I'm projecting the design work to be finalized in 2-3 weeks and once completed, submittals can be sent to the permitting office. The city engineer, Dennis Dowd, has become personally involved with this project due to it's historic significance and I hope to be able to continue my rapport with the City of Charleston building officials to obtain a permit in a reasonable amount of time.

One other area of work that is moving forward is the fire protection upgrades. The current fire sprinkler system does not have adequate water pressure to feed the topmost sprinkler heads in the bell tower. This was discovered after a sprinkler head in the area of the fire failed to trigger properly. I have spent a great deal of time with Liberty Fire Protection, Inc. to develop a plan that will provide the needed water pressure at a reasonable cost. A preliminary plan has been submitted to the Fire Marshall Division at the City and is currently under review. If approved, this work will be carried out at the same time as the other repairs.

Although the work that is taking place now doesn't always provide the feeling of great progress to the observer on the ground, I can assure you it is of utmost importance to the ultimate success of the projects at hand. I look forward to reporting back when we have a permit in hand and a schedule of work to be completed.

Thanks,
P. Russell Smith
BuildSmith, LLC
51 John Street
Charleston, SC 29403

The bell tower has been undergoing repairs since January 2020 as part of the vision of the Steeple Fund. Progress updates (and lots of photos) can be found here.

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