Murals

Gregg Grunow <virginiana [at] nngov__com> writes

>Can anyone recommend an effective and economical method for
>protecting a wall mural during remodeling and the replacement of a
>heating and air conditioning system?

We have had tremendous success using positive pressure to protect
diorama murals which have to remain in situ while the plaster walls
in front of them were demolished. This generated huge amounts of
plaster dust and none of it got inside the dioramas!

We used a simple and relatively fast solution. We taped relatively
light weight polyethylene sheeting to the shells and pumped them
full of clean air by ducting off the existing HVAC. We simply used
dryer hose and duct tape to pipe some air from the existing ducts
and carry it over to the dioramas.

We are concerned about our air source getting contaminated by
construction dirt in other parts. Therefore next time we are going
to improve upon our system by inserting a filter part way the air
path between the HVAC and the diorama.

We know in the future we may not always have access to an HVAC.
Therefore we have investigated doing a similar approach but with a
portable supply of air. We are hopeful that we can strip down a
microclimate generator to produce a portable filtered air source
e.g. <URL:http://www.microclimate.ca/>.

Carolyn Leckie
Conservator
Canadian Museum of Nature
613-566-2465


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 19:12
                Distributed: Wednesday, August 31, 2005
                       Message Id: cdl-19-12-003
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