The boiler heating system was shut down in the building all day Tuesday, when temperatures were in the single-digits and teens, said building manager Jeff Wade. In that time, the pipes in the radiator that burst froze, he said.
“When something is so cold and then when heat hits it — it will just make it crack,” Wade said.
Sometime overnight Tuesday or early Wednesday when the boiler was turned back on and heated the radiator, a large crack in the metal split open and water poured out.
More than an inch of standing water filled the rooms of the Turner Foundation historical archives, said Kevin Rose, a historian with the foundation.
“Certainly if it was not caught sooner, there would have been significant damage,” Rose said.
The archives hold thousands of records, ranging from photos to mink scarves, dating back to the foundation of Springfield in the early 1800s.
The humidity caused by the water mixed with the heat from the radiator also caused a problem for many of the old papers and photos that were kept in the archives, Rose said.
“We’ll have to assess the damage, but thankfully most of the collection was spared,” Rose said.
The water wasn’t contained to the floor where the burst was, Wade said, but flowed down the walls all the way to the basement of the 10-story building, firefighters said.
“It looked it was raining through the ceilings,” Wade said.
The Springfield Fire Rescue Division firefighters who responded to the leak worked quickly to help the Turner Foundation move articles from the flooded rooms to dry spaces, Rose said, potentially saving precious documents.
“We owe a lot to the fire department — they’re awesome,” he said.
The total cost of all the damages to the building is still unknown, Wade said, but it will be expensive. Ceilings, light fixtures and floors will likely have to be replaced, he said.
Pieces damaged from the water will be looked over by the Turner Foundation to determine how they can be repaired and saved, Rose said.
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