White River Division...Off the Tracks

The area under the window is the point that I think water is coming through and running down behind the drywall and insulation.

Water issues...

A few weeks back we had a very heavy rain that leaked into my basement. I did already have one spot that I need to repair by the furnace when I replace it this year. This has to be dug out from the outside. I also need to remove the central air unit (which also needs replacing) from the same location. This winter a second leak has appeared about 10 ft from the first. I store by sailboat gear under the layout. When I found a puddle under my gear I pulled everything out from under there and realised the water had run down the wall under the drywall. I also have a window in the same area which I am hoping is the problem. I can't really check this out till it warms up a little and the snow is gone. The insulation is wet meaning that section of the wall has to be removed and insulation removed before mold sets in. My staging yard and West Barre are located here and can not be just moved away...means that section of the layout and wiring needs to be cut out and removed to do the work.

Replacing the drywall, mud and sanding is going to make a mess so a lot of the structures, trees need to be removed. My rolling stock gets put away for the summer so that is not an issue. I also have to figure out how I can blend in the sky colour as the whole layout room was painted at one time blending in the white and blue as I went along. Any touch ups will be really noticed.

This leads me to the next question. If I am pulling out a major section of the layout, replacing the furnace and piping should happen at the same time. The furnace piping runs over WRJ and West Barre.  Do I  re-figure the layout into one that does not have a duck under. I am finding I hate the duck under as I am getting older. I could leave half of the layout as is and rebuild the outside wall into a free standing area which does not need the wall for support. The layout would then become a point to point operation instead of the circle it is now.

One learns a lot about layout design and construction from issues like this. In the future I am planning on module design with the mini scenes to be removable such as I currently have at West Barre. I have keep my wiring simplistic which I will do once again. Lots to think about over the next month or two. I think the White River Division can be a much better layout if rebuilt but I do like what I have and will see if it can be fixed...George Dutka

As one can see the drywall and insulation is only applied down to the frost line or four feet from the ceiling. The concrete wall is seen under the layout. I attached the layout to the bottom supports of the drywall. One can see I have removed some of my sailboat gear to get a better look at the area under the layout and clean up the water. I also pulled off the plastic I have applied to the bottom of the layout.