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By Ben Finley

The Associated Press

SUFFOLK, Va. 鈥� Whenever historic homes get flooded, building contractors often feel compelled by government regulations to rip out the waterlogged wood flooring, tear down the old plaster walls and install new, flood-resistant materials. It’s a hurried approach that’s likely to occur across southwest Florida in the wake of聽Hurricane Ian.

But restorers Paige Pollard and Kerry Shackelford say they know something not yet proved by science: historic building materials can often withstand repeated soakings. There’s often no need, they say, to install modern products such as box-store lumber that are both dilute a house’s historic character and cost homeowners significantly.

鈥淥ur forefathers chose materials that were naturally rot-resistant, like black locust and red cedar and cypress,鈥� said Shackelford, who owns a historic property restoration business. 鈥淎nd they actually survive better than many of the products we use today.鈥�

Pollard and Shackelford are part of an emerging movement in the U.S. that aims to prove the resilience of older homes as more fall under the threat of聽rising seas and intensifying storms due to climate change.聽They hope their research near Virginia’s coast can convince more government officials and building contractors that historic building materials often need be cleaned 鈥� not replaced 鈥� after a flood.

In Florida, historic preservationists already fear older homes damaged by Ian may be stripped of original materials because so few available craftsmen can properly perform repairs.

鈥淭here are some companies that just roll through, and their job is just to come in and gut the place and move on,鈥� said Jenny Wolfe, board president of the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation.

Pollard and Shackelford started a joint venture in Virginia: retrofit design firm Building Resilient Solutions. This year they opened a lab in which planks of old-growth pine, oak and cedar are submerged into a tank mimicking flood conditions. The tests are designed to demonstrate historic materials’ durability and were devised with help from Virginia Tech researchers.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service has been working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on similar research at the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, Illinois. Researchers there have read through construction manuals from the mid-19th and early 20th centuries to assemble everything from tongue-and-groove flooring to brick walls coated with plaster. The materials were lowered into water containing bacteria and mold to simulate tainted floodwater.

The research may seem glaringly redundant considering all the older homes that stand intact along the nation’s coasts and rivers: many have withstood multiple floods and still boast their original floors and walls.

Pollard and Shackelford say lumber in older homes is resilient because it came from trees that grew slowly over decades, if not centuries. That means the trees’ growth rings were small and dense, thereby making it harder for water to seep in. Also, the timber was cut from the innermost part of the trunk, which produces the hardest wood.

Plaster can also be water resistant, while common plaster coatings were made from lime, a substance with antiseptic qualities.

But here’s the problem: U.S. flood insurance regulations often require structures in flood-prone areas to be repaired with products classified as flood-resistant. And many historic building materials haven’t been classified because they haven’t been tested.

U.S. regulations allow exceptions for homes on the National Register of Historic Places as well as some state and local registries. But not everyone fully understands or is aware of the exceptions, which can be limited.

The far bigger challenge is a lack of expertise among contractors and local officials, Pollard said. Interpretations of the regulations can vary, particularly in the chaos after a major flood.

鈥淵ou’ve got a property owner who’s in distress,鈥� said Pollard, who co-owns a historic preservation firm. 鈥淭hey’re dealing with a contractor who’s being pulled in a million directions. And the contractors are trained to get all of that (wet) material into a dumpster as quickly as possible.鈥�

In Norfolk, Virginia, homeowner Karen Speights said that after her home flooded, a contractor replaced her original first floor 鈥� made from old-growth pine 鈥� with laminate flooring. Built in the 1920s, Speights’ two-story craftsman is in Chesterfield Heights, a predominantly Black neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places. It sits along a Chesapeake Bay estuary in one of the most vulnerable cities to sea-level rise.

鈥淚 still believe I had a good contractor, but flooding was not his expertise,鈥� Speights said. 鈥淵ou don’t know what you don’t know.鈥�

Along Florida’s Gulf Coast, there are thousands of historic structures, Wolfe said. Many are wood-framed houses on piers with plaster-and-lath walls. Most of those likely just need to dry out after Ian, she said. But not all local contractors know what to do 鈥渋n terms of drying them slowly and opening up the baseboards to get circular airflow.鈥�

Andy Apter, president-elect of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, agreed that many contractors aren’t well-versed in older building materials.

鈥淭here’s no course that I know of that teaches you directly how to work on historical homes,鈥� said Apter, a Maryland contractor. 鈥淚t’s like an antique car. You’re going to be limited on where you can find parts and where you can find someone who’s qualified to work on it.鈥�

Hurricane Katrina deluged hundreds of thousands of historic structures along the Gulf Coast in 2005, and interest in older homes’ resilience has grown since, according to Jenifer Eggleston, the National Park Service’s chief of staff for cultural resources, partnerships and science. The agency recognized the growing need to protect older structures and last year issued new guidelines for rehabilitating historic buildings in flood-prone areas, she said.

The guidelines recommend keeping historic materials in place when possible. But they don’t list specific materials due to the lack of research on their flood resistance.

That’s where the studies come in.

A recent study by the National Park Service and Army Corps found that some historic materials, such as old-growth heart pine and cypress flooring, performed considerably better than certain varieties of modern lumber, Eggleston said.

Those assemblies could be dried for reuse after so-called 鈥渃lean water鈥� damage, Eggleston said. But they would likely require refinishing to remove 鈥渂iological activity,鈥� such as mold and bacteria.

Pollard and Shackelford said they’re hoping for an eventual shift in practices that will save money for homeowners as well as taxpayers, who often foot the bill after a major disaster.