Bringing colonial up to code

NFPA Journal, Jan/Feb 2003 by Weiger, Pam

In Colonial Williamsburg, safety officials have successfully balanced fire protection with historic preservation, allowing an important part of U.S. history to survive the test of time while

WHEN IT COMES to fire the challenges facing historic buildings are similar to those every building faces: electrical problems. lightning strikes, arson, and candle fires. But when the structures and their contents are part of an extensive cluster of centuries-old, nationally historic buildings, the stakes are much higher. Once these structures and the items they contain are lost, they can never be replaced.

Each year, more than four million visitors flock to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, to wander through the 88 original eighteenth-century buildings in the town where the United States' founding fathers formulated and debated the democratic ideals that form the basis of U.S society. The buildings were restored by the Rockefeller family and later the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to remind Americans of their heritage.

For the past 27 years, Danny McDaniel, director of Security, Safety, and Transportation for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and his staff of 60 security and safety professionals have had a role in protecting those buildings, struggling daily to preserve the cultural treasures without intruding unnecessarily on their original character.

"Clearly, fire is the most significant threat we face," says McDaniel, who is also a past chair of NFPA's Technical Committee on Cultural Resources. "But it's a huge balance issue when you're trying to put fire protection systems in an original building and you're working with curators who'd prefer not to have anything that would affect the aesthetics of the original fabric."

At Colonial Williamsburg, historic landmarks house hotels, restaurants, shops, and offices. That means they must address all the safety issues associated with the specific occupancy, while dealing with the delicate issues of historic preservation. To balance both requirements, Williamsburg officials typically tie the installation of fire protection systems to maintenance-- related renovations using the foundation's renovation and renewal program. This program is designed to keep up with significant maintenance issues involving roof replacement, HVAC, and electrical work, to bring buildings up to code and install stateof-the-art systems

"We wouldn't take a building out of inventory just for sprinklers," McDaniel says. "But when there's another major renovation, we'll upgrade for fire protection."

Four years ago, for example, the Colonial Capitol Building was shut down for extensive basement work, so contractors installed a sprinkler main in the basement at the same time. Last year, when the Capitol's attic and third floor were being renovated, workers installed sprinklers in those areas, as well. The Capitol's first and second floors remain unsprinklered, but the water main has been sized to accommodate them whenever those areas undergo renovation.

By tying fire protection upgrades to renovation projects, McDaniel and his crew have managed to fully or partially sprinkler 25 to 30 percent of Williamsburg's exhibition buildings.

"Our purpose during renovations is to bring a building completely up to code without anyone being able to tell we did anything," McDaniel says. "And we almost did that with the Williamsburg Inn project."

Built in 1936, the 115,000-squarefoot (10,684-square-meter) Williamsburg Inn relied for fire protection on an outdated heat detection system from the 1930s, "a pneumatic-- type system you'd see in a museum,' according to McDaniel. Three additions to the three-story inn over the years resulted in 100 hotel rooms that are typically occupied year-round.

The 18-month renovation completed last year at a cost of more than $12 million, included installing wet-pipe sprinklers throughout the structure and an addressable fire-alarm-panel detection system.

"That project was a simple one because they incorporated more than the fire safety code would have required," says John Catlett, building official for the city of Williamsburg. "Now, I think that building would function as well as any newly constructed building out there."

While Virginia uses the model building codes published by Building Officials Code Administrators (BOCA) and the International Code Council, Catlett says any recognized national standard or code can be considered when evaluating safety modifications. Because BOCA's code is very vague on historic buildings, Catlett says officials turned to NFPA 914, Fire Protection in Historic Structures, and NFPA 909, Protection of Cultural Resources. These two documents served as the framework for setting up a team-oriented process that enabled users, owners, contractors, and code officials to communicate with each other from the beginning.

"I would encourage this kind of team approach on everything, starting with the pre-construction meeting," Catlett says. "That way, we're not an agency that just says 'no.' "