Status: 08/14/2022 11:31 a.m
A total of 16 churches have to be renovated on Eiderstedt in the district of North Friesland. The financing was initially available, but new damage is increasingly appearing. The price increases exacerbate the problem.
The renovations were already complex and costly in the planning: for six years, the construction experts and external planning offices of the Nordfriesland church district recorded the damage to the Eidestedt churches and planned the repairs, especially to the roofs and walls. Above all, this includes damage caused by static problems, rotten beams, cracks in the masonry, missing or chipped stones, dilapidated roof tiles, damaged wall anchors that hold the walls together. All of this is to be put in order in the planned mammoth renovation of the 16 churches. But now it’s getting worse.
Tönning Church: The entire roof needs to be renovated
During the construction work, the experts discovered more and more expensive damage. For example in Tönning: The entire roof there now has to be renovated because a lot of things up there are rotten. Originally only a part was in the plan. “We’re working on this damage now. Of course we also find other damage here and there because you can’t see it from below, you can only see it when you get to the construction site,” says the planner of the church district, Anna Sax.
Church Oldenswort: In addition to the vault, there are now static problems on the tower
Extremely severe damage was already known in Oldenswort during the planning phase: cracks in the masonry, damage to the vault, missing bricks and defective joints on large parts of the walls. Now serious damage is added: The builders now also have to replace the frame of the church tower. The beams are rotten at the core, a wall anchor is broken. These are solid iron bars. They reach across the tower and are supposed to hold the walls together. There is a long-term threat of collapse if the damage is not repaired.
Osterhever church: painting found, but no money for restoration
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In Osterhever, the builders have uncovered hidden paintings. However, there is currently no money for an immediate restoration.
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And in the church in Osterhever there was actually a very nice surprise: “During the roof renovation, the builders uncovered hidden historical paintings on a wooden ceiling. But due to the cost pressure, these cannot be renovated at the same time,” says Pastor Michael Goltz. Now the timbers are taken out and stored until there is money to reconstruct and restore the works – eventually.
Material partly 400 percent more expensive
The enormous cost increases for material, energy and wages are also putting the planners under pressure. Extreme example: Steel has increased in price by 400 percent in the past two years. According to architect Sax, the almost typical cost increases of around 15 to 20 percent between planning and execution were taken into account in the planning. But the funding gap remains. Now they have to reschedule all new claims, reassess costs and find savings potential.
Only the essentials
“There is no longer enough money to continue doing everything as planned,” confirms Pastor Goltz. In order not to jeopardize the overall renovation, the entire roof is now being renovated in Tönning, but not the interior. “Otherwise that would mean that you would have to leave something out of the other churches, which will also come next year or the year after that. And that would mean that in the end we only made five churches and the others didn’t – that Of course we don’t want to.”
Festival with jugglers and clowns on construction scaffolding
The parishes are countering the drastic cost increases with creative campaigns and are hoping for significantly more donations: “We want to bring more people to and from the construction sites, with construction site concerts, with community festivals, with guided tours. So – at the end of September there will be a cabaret festival , where clowns and acrobats perform on the scaffolding, for example. Something really great is being created here and we want to get as many people as possible involved and excited about it,” says Pastor Goltz.
In addition, the church district now wants to ask the federal government, the state and the northern church for further funds under the changed conditions, because they had promised large parts of the financing from the beginning.
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