Church Steeple Removal & Repair

CIS Steeplejacks Church Steeple Cupola Clock Bell Tower Repair & Restoration Specialist USA: Church Steeple Removal & Repair: "CIS Steeplejacks church steeple removal and repair services since 1976. Michael Hardin and crew travel nationwide providing professional a..."

Church Steeple Removal & Repair

CIS Steeplejacks church steeple removal and repair services since 1976. Michael Hardin and crew travel nationwide providing professional and safe removal, installations and repair. CIS offers consultation, inspection and discount pricing on new fiberglass and or aluminum steeples. Please fee free to contact us and speak with a specialist today.

We are a nationwide steeplejack company we offer church steeple removal and repair services in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming. Including the cities of New York, NY - Los Angeles, CA - Chicago, IL - Houston, TX - Philadelphia, PA - San Diego, CA - Detroit, MI - Dallas, TX - Phoenix, AZ - San Antonio, TX - San Jose, CA - Baltimore, MD - Indianapolis, IN - San Francisco, CA - Jacksonville, FL - Columbus, OH - Milwaukee, WI - Memphis, TN - Washington, DC - Boston, MA - Seattle, WA - St. Louis, MO - Atlanta, GA - Pittsburgh, PA - Minneapolis, MN - Miami, FL - Tampa, FL / We specialize in church steeple painting roofing repair rigging cleaning restoration and renovation.

CIS Steeplejacks Church Steeple Cupola Clock Bell Tower Repair & Restoration Specialist USA: Crew works to correct damage to stained windows on...

CIS Steeplejacks Church Steeple Cupola Clock Bell Tower Repair & Restoration Specialist USA: Crew works to correct damage to stained windows on...: "Crew works to correct damage to stained windows on steeple February 11, 2009 By DAVE GOSSETT, staff writer STEUBENVILLE - Mitchell Spooner..."

Crew works to correct damage to stained windows on steeple

Crew works to correct damage to stained windows on steeple
February 11, 2009
By DAVE GOSSETT, staff writer
STEUBENVILLE - Mitchell Spooner edged carefully onto the roof ledge approximately 100 feet above the ground.
He laughed Tuesday afternoon as he held up the harness that tied him to the manlift parked in front of the Holy Resurrection Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church on Fourth Street.
Spooner was wiping down the metal frame surrounding the church's stained glass windows before his co-workers placed a sheet of lexcan over the glass.
FIXING DAMAGE — A three-man crew from CIS Steeplejack of Medina on Tuesday prepared to cover the stained glass windows in the steeple at the Holy Resurrection Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church with a special plastic covering.
Three crew members from CIS Steeplejack of Medina are spending the week repairing, cleaning and protecting the stained glass windows in the church steeple.
According to the Rev. Rade Merick, pastor of the church, "the strong wind storms we had here last fall damaged our windows. So our secretary talked to our insurance company and put us in touch with this company."
"They are all very nice young men, but that is something I could never do," commented Merick as he watched the three men move about the steeple.
"They are fixing the damaged stained glass, protecting it with the polycarbon plastic covering and fixing the electrical lighting system in the steeple. They will be installing LED lights so we won't have to change them as often," added Merick.
"It takes a lot of work to keep the church well maintained," Merick noted.
The church was built at its North Fourth Street location in 1947.
Michael Hardin owns CIS Steeplejack which he described as "the Cadillac of Steeplejacks."
"I started in this business when I was 16 or 17 years old. There was a 70-year-old guy from the Cleveland area who climbed around church steeples, inside and outside doing repair work. I sort of attached myself to him and started learning the trade. Then I started my own company about 24 years ago," explained Hardin.
"We should have this job finished up by Friday and then we will move on to our next job. We travel all over the country doing this work. We have had the pleasure of working with some of the oldest, most prominent, historical church steeples and buildings all over the United States," noted Hardin.
"This job isn't too bad. We just finished a job in Tupelo, Miss., that was tough. This would be considered a small job. This is my first time in Steubenville, so I come in with my truck and trailer and have to find a place to rent certain equipment like the manlift we are using here," said Hardin.
"Sure, working way up like that bothers me. But you prepare for the job and make sure you take the proper precautions and everything should go according to plan," noted Hardin.
"CIS Steeplejack has acquired and maintained a quality standard in the restoration industry by paying attention to the often delicate needs of vintage materials and historical architecture. Our team of master riggers, skilled craftsmen and dedicated artisans have taken CIS Steeplejack to new heights of recognition," said Hardin.
"We work with a variety of materials from stained glass to masonry. These jobs can be challenging at times but they are well worth it. It really is enjoyable doing this work and preserving the church structures," stated Hardin.
Spooner finished wiping the metal frame, and co-worker Logan Patton started applying a glue to the frame.
Patton joined CIS Steeplejack last year when he was laid off from his auto body work job.
"Mike is a buddy of mine and he offered me a job with his company. It can be a little strange when you are up in the air like that, you just have to be careful," Patton said.
"It will be fine once we are up in the air. Just get up there and we will chill out and get this job done right," Hardin said with a smile.
(Gossett can be contacted at dgossett@heraldstaronline.com.)

Disaster Feed

The United Church of Christ is issuing an appeal in response to severe flooding and to what authorities describe as the worst-single stretch of tornadoes in more than four decades. Over 200 deaths have already been reported.

CIS Steeplejacks Church Steeple Cupola Clock Bell Tower Repair & Restoration Specialist USA: Cost of Maintaining a Steeple

CIS Steeplejacks Church Steeple Cupola Clock Bell Tower Repair & Restoration Specialist USA: Cost of Maintaining a Steeple: "By John Beale for USA TODAY 4/29/2011 Steeplejacks from CIS Steeplejack look for a leak around a steeple at First Baptist Church in Ford ..."

Disaster Feed

The United Church of Christ is issuing an appeal in response to severe flooding and to what authorities describe as the worst-single stretch of tornadoes in more than four decades. Over 200 deaths have already been reported.

Cost of Maintaining a Steeple

By John Beale for USA TODAY
4/29/2011

Steeplejacks from CIS Steeplejack look for a leak around a steeple at First Baptist Church in Ford City, Pa.

Michael Hardin of CIS Steeplejack of Litchfield, Ohio, talks with parishioners at First Baptist Church in Ford City, Pa., about their church's steeple. Hardin was asked to check on a leak that parishioners said was coming from around the steeple.

Contact CIS Steeplejack
Phone: 330-461-6251
Website: http://www.steepleusa.com/

CIS Steeplejacks Church Steeple Cupola Clock Bell Tower Repair & Restoration Specialist USA: Church steeples, aging out of fashion, meet their...

CIS Steeplejacks Church Steeple Cupola Clock Bell Tower Repair & Restoration Specialist USA: Church steeples, aging out of fashion, meet their...: "Church steeples, aging out of fashion, meet their maker By Cathy Lynn Grossman , USA TODAY Atop the tiny, white-columned 1842 church where ..."

Church steeples, aging out of fashion, meet their maker
By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY
Atop the tiny, white-columned 1842 church where Glen Likens was baptized, where he married his wife, where their children were baptized, where they still worship on Sundays, the steeple is rotting.

By Ken Blaze, for USA TODAY

Glen Likens of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Wadsworth, Ohio, discusses the church's deteriorating 2,000-pound bell.

Glen Likens of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Wadsworth, Ohio, discusses the church's deteriorating 2,000-pound bell.

St. Mark's Episcopal in Wadsworth, Ohio, hasn't dared sound the 2,000-pound bell, which has a broken carriage and patched hammer, for a year. It may not sound again — unless a congregation numbering 58 souls in a good week can come up with $30,000.

"It's no easy amount to raise. We absolutely considered taking it off and capping the roof, but voices within the congregation want their bell, their tower. It's symbolic. It's part of our church. We want it to be there for our children's future," says Likens, who volunteers as St. Mark's junior warden in charge of maintenance.

Nationwide, church steeples are taking a beating and the bell tolls for bell towers, too, as these landmarks of faith on the landscape are hard hit by economic, social and religious change.

Steeplejacks, specialists in clambering up to build or repair the soaring structures, see weather-struck, maintenance-deprived steeples chipped, leaking, even tilting .

By John Beale for USA TODAY
Steeplejacks check a church steeple leak in Ford City, Pa.

Architects and church planners see today's new congregations meet in retooled sports arenas or shopping malls or modern buildings designed to appeal to contemporary believers turned off by the look of old-time religion.

Steeples may have outlived their times as signposts. People hunting for a church don't scan the horizon, they search the Internet. Google reports searches for "churches" soar before Easter each year.

St. Mark's, which has no website, has never needed to tell the 22,000 people in Wadsworth where it was because, Likens says, "everyone in town knows this is the church with the bell tower."

"But everyone also knows the Episcopal church and congregations as a whole aren't growing," he says. "In fact, they are sliding and they are aging like St. Mark's. That adds to our decision dilemma: Where do you want to put your money as a congregation? Are we better off doing outreach programs? You want to keep your history, but you want to have a future, too."
St. Mark's repair estimate — replacing water-laden timbers and rotting boards on the facing, repairing the bell's carriage, and having the nerve and skill to do it all from four stories up on a scaffold — came from veteran steeplejack Michael Hardin of Litchfield, Ohio.

After three decades of repairing steeples, Hardin still considers it "a bit of joy to restore something so old and so beautiful and help it retain its integrity."
The average age of the churches he works on is a half-century. The older steeples, "built with top-notch lumber and a lot of heart," are holding up structurally, and more often need only cosmetic fixes.

In more recent decades, Hardin says, "church builders went a little haywire. People used shortcuts and cheaper lumber or they moved to the fiberglass steeples that claim to be maintenance-free. And if there's a problem they stand back and try to get band-aid repairs or they just remove it and cap it off."

To Jim Phelan, a third-generation steeplejack in Pacifica, Calif. knocking off a steeple "just doesn't look right. You can just see something is missing."

Even as Phelan teaches his son, Kells, 10, how to don climbing gear and hitch up a 30-foot flagpole, he's not sure there will be much steeple work in their future.

"It's sad. I'm not doing the same thing my grandfather did. We used to do six to eight steeples a year — painting, repairing, waterproofing, regilding the crosses on top. Now I do one or two a year," says Phelan, who recently regilded a cross on a cathedral in San Francisco.
If Kells follows his father's 45 years in the business, he'll probably make most of his money on smokestacks and cell towers — or church steeples masquerading as cell towers.

Providence Baptist Church in McLean, Va., a congregation of 450 in the Washington suburbs, managed to get a whole new aluminum steeple and $25,000 annually for its maintenance budget by hopping on the leased-tower trend last year.

Senior Pastor Tim Floyd says the original steeple, moved from the congregation's first location, was "in good shape, but it was too small for the larger, newer church. And we needed to bring in more money for our maintenance budget. So what could we do? We saw that cellphone companies are using innovative methods, like artificial trees with antennas, to disguise their equipment and bring in cell coverage without unsightly towers."

Church leaders located a company ready to deal, negotiated the design and "now we have a steeple, hiding two cell antennas, that gives us a really big profile on the horizon. It's elegant and majestic and a win-win for us," Floyd says.

It's also a visual contrast to a massive, modern megachurch across the street that boasts no steeple.

No surprise, says architect Gary Landhauser, a partner with Novak Design Group in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who worked on nearly 30 churches in past 15 years.

"We have done a lot of church designs, but we haven't done a steeple design in 15 years," Landhauser says.

Today, he says, people want their church to look comfortable and inviting, "more like a mall."

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