DUST CLEAN-UP – It’s not quite as dirty a job as mucking out a Barre basement after a flood, but the indoor dust storm that struck the Vermont State House after an HVAC malfunction requires plenty of hands-on remediation. Clockwise from left: Clair Taveras dusts off the Consuelo Bailey photo on the main floor; the iconic Battle of Cedar Creek painting awaiting a day-long, multi-laddered dusting on Friday; and the offending new HVAC system. Page photos

by Guy Page

Blowing smoke at the Vermont State House, yes. Happens every day when the Legislature is in session. But blowing dust?

Several months ago, the new Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system at the Vermont State House in Montpelier released plumes of unfiltered dust into hallways and meeting rooms of the venerable 165-year-old building. All this week, Meeting House Restoration workers have been dusting the iconic portraits of Vermont governors, lieutenant governors, soldiers and other historic figures.

On Friday, workers armed with dusters will be scaling ladders to dust every square inch of the huge Battle of Cedar Creek painting by Julian Scott. Hands-down the most memorable offering in the world’s most acclaimed collection of Vermont history art and memorabilia, the painting is covered with a fine but visible layer of dust as of this writing on Thursday, December 19. 

Old oil paintings may attract dust due to old varnish, typically made from tree resin. A natural product, it can decay and remain slightly sticky over decades and even centuries, according to Fine Art Restoration. But that’s not what happened here. As with most happenings State House, you have to know the back story. 

Back in 1857, s wood-fueled, indoor furnace fire destroyed the Second Vermont State House. No fools they, lawmakers outfitted the new building with an outdoor wood furnace. This heating system stayed in effect until the big renovation of 1971, when heating (modern and safer) was moved back indoors.

50 years later, the State of Vermont embarked on an HVAC upgrade. High levels of mold, Covid fears, and cramped committee rooms (not to mention the influx of Covid-era federal funding) all made the timing propitious. All the work should be finished by next year, State House Curator David Schutz told VDC.

But as the State House building operators learned in 2023 when the ballyhooed $400,000 state-of-the-art backup electrical power lithium battery system failed to meet fire insurance specifications, not everything goes according to design. So it was with the new HVAC system. When turned on, it released plumes of dust into the indoor air. It’s not supposed to do that. Filters, for whatever reason, failed to do their job. Now workers are going room to room with dusters. 

It’s an odd historical footnote that the solution to the indoor battery system paralleled the 1857 decision. The battery was simply moved into an outdoor shed, not unlike the wood-stoked outdoor furnace in 1859, two years before the outbreak of the Civil War.