Published: 11/27/2022 11:00:29 AM
Modified: 11/27/2022 11:00:13 AM
Keeping the historic gasholder building from collapsing involved building a central steel platform resting on a center brick column and 16 massive shoring towers holding up the roof’s main rafters.
That is among the details available in a new video posted by the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance about efforts to save the building. The work, which wrapped up last month, is designed to stabilize the roof and the building while money is raised and plans are made for a long-term solution.
The video is on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMjEfb80dPM, titled “Gasholder Emergency Stabilization: Part 3 of a series.”
The building, 88 feet in diameter and almost 30 feet high, was built in 1888 to hold “manufactured gas” made from coal that was used for lights and heating downtown. That job ended after natural gas came to Concord via pipeline in 1952 and the building has been mostly empty since.
It is owned by Liberty Utilties, which has no use for it or the surrounding two acres.