meirman wrote in message . ..
In alt.home.repair on 17 Oct 2004 13:38:43 -0700
(Christine) posted:
snip
I don't know, but there is a new bio out about Millicent Fenwick, a US
Congressman from New Jersey iirc. After she left the House, she was
the ambassador to some country in Europe for a few years.
snip
When she got back iirc 3 years later, the house looked good on the
outside iirc, but when they went inside, the ceiling in a room or more
had collapsed, and the repairs were about 10000 dollars.

It might help to hear what the actual cause of the interior damage
was, but I'll wager a bunch that it wasn't the absence of heat.
Ice-dams maybe. Or roof leaks that went unnoticed for years. Or any
combination of many possible sources. (She really should have had
someone visit the house regularly.)

Interestingly, no discussion yet of keeping internal relative humidity
stable, or at least within reasonable range. The pulling apart of the
wallboard joints mentioned by OP probably resulted from use of
relatively wet lumber, shrinking on drying- across grain. And maybe
from sub-optimum taping. Nothing much anyone could have done after
the fact with that, except what OP had done.

John