where we have taken every singet piece of hardware off. hings. the lock sets and having them all replated and going to a company that will come in and they will rebuild grease, give the old locks a tune up. there are ways to save it as opposed to replacing it. this one you see the locks that goes to the side of the door many of the new doors you bore a hole and it goes through there. if you wanted to take this out put this in there will be patchwork involved. it's cheaper to have this either repair or replaced or do carp entry work. >> you can go to a lot of salvage shops and find boxes full of old locks. if you have one that's not

functioning and need parts you go out on saturday. the brand is to the lock you can get a new salvage unit. the quality of the castings and trim are superior to those things available. >> a comment? >> to what degree does disabled access apply to old multifamily residential buildings? >> in door hardware i saw a building it's made accessible you have the latch knobs. >> goods question section of the california building -- [laughter] says specifically that the regulations for disabled access do not apply to

existing residential building. anything not newly constructed and newly constructed is, a building that has not know used or occupied for any purpose much if you take a commercial building and convert it to residential it's not a newly constructed building and the disabled access rules would not apply. >> there are exceptions to what you just cited is where the disabled access code does not apply to existing buildings. and i think i'm afraid i must say it depends on the project we viewer you have at the building department as to whether or not it does apply also if it has public financing cht that's another factor. that's not something your audience is concerned about. but probably saw in a publicly

pregnancied rehabilitation this upgrade. >> yeah. publicly financed buildings have a different standard. they fall under a different code and have to provide access. >> if you have a few that are missing in addition to building resources and salvage yards. if you go on e bay there is a whole section of antique hardware. people are offering up beautiful items for auction. and entire sets. you it's not hard to redo the appropriate hardware on a house that had it's historic hardware stripped out you can find historic hardware. you can get there. the old push button switches are made in a variety of modern flavors with a modern set of

inners. they are retrofit switches that be with purchased at rejuvenational hardware. along with brass plates switch plates not plastic. i went to the house of a planner he bought a house from the original owner who was a merchant mariner and come home from long trips and go around the house as we waited for his next voyage. he would take the hings and clean and polish them. if you visit john's house you see the gorgeous polished -- this is a piece of hardware that moves and requires maintenance. housing require maintenance they

are not build and they are there for the end of time. the monster housing are a big surprise a 6,000 square foot home and 3 years later they realize the maintenance required for a house like that. the painting and everything that goes on. here is a beautiful bras hing that has been painted over. how do you get paint off these cht >> there are places where you take these that will strip them, sand blast and repolish them. we plate them as well. a number of replaters in the area much that's -- and you get things like this is just the plain hing. if you had elaborate east lake

hing there are places in san francisco who can dubicate and make new ones. additional things come in mind for you. >> i work in a different price bracket. >> it's always one -- we are having all of our hardware they're being custom cast and made for this house. >> [laughter]. >> it does depend on your budget. >> [laughter]. anything's possible. >> like hypothetically the house i'm working on now if the homeowner has tha r there are heart set on this hardware and we can't find it we can have it made. it will cost money but you can have things made. >> however, i seen people with

no budgets but persistance over the years nibble away and turn the house into something beautiful. this year the hardware and next year something else. you don't have to do this at a fast remodel schedule. you can do this at a pace on your own time. >> bruce. >> do you have any one particular should we say, list or source where one can go in order to find all the different suppliers of restoration services and/or hardware so that the typical san franciscoan who doesn't have the knowledge base that the 3 of you have can do his own research. >> i'd say start on e bay. quite frankly that's where you could say find this in 5 minutes

can you say the, g, word. google. if you type it up on the web it's out there. there are other resources to mention. san francisco architectural heritage is a place you can call they can point you to good things. do you have the number. >> 441-3000. a lot of knowledgeable staff and volunteers quite a library of things. the museum of the historical society, victorian alliance people who fix up their victorians for years. a craft guild in san francisco called artistic license. around for 25 years the cream of the crop as far as period artisans go. there are people who can pull plaster moldings in place. people who do arts and crafts

tiles and stained glass. painters, architect designers. there are people in that group who are in the trenches everyday helping ordinary people. they have a web page, artist artisticlicense. org. somebody in that group doesn't know they can point you to someone that does. places like building resources and salvage houses if they don't have it they will give you a good idea where to find it. with leg work and phone calls and the computer it's not hard to find the resources. >> it's getting easier with the internet. >> building units, an old plumbi plumbing fixture. if the porcelain is chipped you

don't have to throw it away. i know of one place in berkeley on san pablo. sunlight salvage. >> that's right. they are constantly rescuing. if i take an old thing out of a construction site i don't throw it away. they will hall it away they will give you a few bucks. they will take it off and redo the porcelain and resell it. >> another thing i wanted to point out i do in the building forensicings realm. if you look in the fixture it's not an old thing. the dates that this was fabricated, a lot of plumbing fixtures are in the fixtures this is december 30th 1947.

if you look at your plumbing fixtures you will see the dates when these were made. fascinating we can date remodels. the board appeals will ask me when the work was done. i can nail it by the fasteners. what does this tell you about the date. the square cut nails before they were wire nails were used. and that let's you know this is a piece installed in victorian times. >> often the screws, also. >> uh-huh. >> an older type screw. many of the screws now are phillips and look like sheet

rock. >> the mention dating plumbing fixtures the same is for door and window hardware. oftentimes it will have a manufacture and a patent date. >> right. >> here's a cool hing. that was a door hing. heavy, probably weighs 5 times what a normal hing ways. >> a hing to made to swing both ways it's double acting and a spring hing you adjust it. >> this one might be rusted. saturday you might be able to get it to work. >> then, we have some facets and hardware. what can people do to upgrade stuff like that? >> well, it's all disassembleable. everything canning replaced. as with the door hardware you

can take this out and have it plated in anything you like. if you don't like chrome or you want this to be brass or oil rubbed. this can be separated and taken out and replated. or at the very least buffed and polished and made to look better than it currently does. >> which is not bad. >> go to a plumbing show room and find me something with this weight. >> a lot of the stuff is easily accessible. a screw and nut here and you take it apart >> the newer hardware you can't do that. the washers you can take it out and find something that will fit inside. >> books that we will show you a diagram of how to change

washers it's not hard. >> i have some old very nice wood cabinet it's painted by the previous owner. what's the best way sanding that is really dusty and -- >> you want to ship it down to the natural surface or repaint it. >> if you are concerned about lead you can test it to see if it's hot and what the lead content is if it's low sand it, prime it and repaint it. >> they have a contractor doing those things coming to your house and strip it. >> well, there are painters in san francisco who make a big chunk of business in dealing with lead remediation projects it can be suits and an intense

thing. we will come in and they will set up a containment area and do the sanding. the workers are protected against toxics. and who will do that. there are contractors that do that. >> for repainting you don't have to strip you have to rough it up and clean it up. >> go ahead. >> i have the older building with the frost not clear plastic on a semihistorical building how you replace that i want to clear? >> a window. >> 80 years old. what should i do i don't want to ruin history. some say, replace the whole thing >> the want to save the wood it's probably a hundred years old the plexiglass is dirty. >> not historic plexiglass.

you can get replacement plexiglass or plastic. >> okay with clear glass. the sash i should preserve that. >> the sash is sound it's a good thing environmentally historically it's good to save if you can. it's not a complicated trick to remove the glazing. >> i wanted to talk about electric stuff much the electrical code say you are permitted to extend existing electrical systems. knob and tube systems which are common in san francisco in older buildings don't have to be replaced. you don't have to upgrade the system because it's older

wiring. it's safe and may be extended as necessary to serve new fixtures. that's in the historic building code and regular electrical code. you can often find the wonderful fixtures in salvage yards. >> you have comments? there are a couple of shops you can take this to them and they will rewire it with modern wiring. sometimes, because we have combination gas and electric fixtures they rewire the old gas fixtures as well. there are resources availables to getting them fixed up. >> this one needs more than rewiring but. [laughter]. >> you can get all of the bits

and pieces for the fixtures these days on the internet and salva salvage yards. terrific place on sacramento street that has a tremendous collection of historic glass and chandeliers. >> it's over in laurel heights wood chuck antiques. there is victor's antique light nothing the bay view area. both of those are if you look under lighting in the yellow pages you will find wood chuck and victors. our last display is the old heater, which we see many of you have these in your homes. and once again it's a piece of moving equipment requires maintenance has to be taken ark part now and then. has a single screw you losen it, take it ark part, lubricate it, clean it, put it back together.

buildings require general maintenance. it's not a big deal. you put the screw back in and it's another 5 years before you lubricate it again. >> depending on your ducts that could be an asbestos prospect. >> this says september 7, 1925 or 7. isn't that great. i want to thank you for coming today for love and care for your old san francisco house. it was really great.

>> welcome to the 2011 spj town hall. i'm here with my co-host to welcome you to what promises to be a fascinating discussion about the changes taking place in journalism today. tonight's program is presented by the society of professional journalists in collaboration with the san francisco public library and san francisco bay area journalists. after several years of difficulty, we are seeing a lot of activity, particularly involving new media organizations.

we have seen patch.com open hundreds of bureaus across the country. yahoo! is expanding its staff across the country. aol bought the huffington opposed. in the middle east, we saw how citizen journalists are reporting on the uprisings, and in papers like the "san francisco chronicle" are finding ways to collaborate with groups like spj's journalist of the year in northern california. his last three of this year's winners were new or nonprofit media, a ratio that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago when newspapers and large tv stations dominated the news media. to be sure, most of the hard work is still ahead of us. few new start-ups turn a profit. many community newsrooms' still rely on volunteer labor, and broader economic issues.

we want to encourage the members of our audience here at the public library to drive this discussion. this is your chance to ask these experts what is happening to the news that you depend on to make your day to day decisions. our conversation tonight will include five elements -- we will talk about the quality of reporting available to the public and move on to what is being done to create sustainable newsroom jobs. we will talk about creating a new system that enjoys constitutional freedom of the press, celebrates the diversity of our communities, and enjoys the economic independence needed to support ethical journalism. i would like to introduce my coast -- co-host of the evening, and she will be introducing our panelists. >> thank you, rose. it is a privilege to stand up

here. we are not used to looking this good. we can go to radio in pajamas. i would like to introduce our panelists for today. we will start back from the left. executive producer of the "daily mandarin and cantonese newshour." next to him is the director of multimedia and technology programs at the night digital media center at uc-berkeley. next is the managing is theidd -- managing director at idd ventures sf. nexus' the editor in chief of marketwatch.com, part of news corp. -- next is the editor in chief. the co-founder and senior

community manager of oakland local, a nonprofit media that promotes public discourse on issues. in the front row is a media analyst, who publishes an was a key developer of the mercury center. next to him is an assistant professor of broadcast and electronic media at san francisco state university. next is the managing editor for local news at -- i'm sorry. he is not at yahoo!, right. he is editor-in-chief of patch.com, a division of aol that provides news to specific communities. very local. after him, we have the managing director for local news at yahoo.com, guiding the

company's local coverage nationwide. last but not least is the senator who represents san francisco and san mateo counties, and he is the recipient of spj's freedom of information award in 2010. that is our panel. back to you, rose. >> before we start, i want to get a sense of who we have in the audience. how many of you currently work in the media? lots. how many of you used to work in the media? how many of you want to work in the media? ok, good. that will give us a sense of who we are talking with. great. every friday, we have a media roundtable and invite international, alternative, and mainstream journalists to talk about coverage of the week's news. we believe it is important to highlight good journalism because so much of it gets passed over. we think it is also important to

start off on a positive no. with that, i want to start off on a positive note tonight. i worked with very. we were on staff before the web was even a mainstream word. i just want to ask you, since you were there in the beginning, and you have rode the wave, what is really exciting new as we face all these challenges? >> the good news is we see an emerging business model for media, and the bad news is it involves giving 30% of your revenue to apple. but i think there is a lot of potential, actually, for building a business on top of distribution through mobile. the other thing we have got going on is really profoundly exciting and far more exciting than five years ago, that the

tools are so much better than they were five years ago. they are profoundly better. compared to the dark days of 2005, media are now -- everybody is online. facebook can launch a product, and really, overnight, build community on thousands of websites. there really are some exciting things going on. in the last five years, things have changed a lot. >> does that count -- does that excitement also extend to content? >> i do not think we are there yet. i do not think we have seen any digital native content that has produced really ground-breaking journalism. a couple of years ago, we were pretty excited about what was happening at a place like talking points memo, where they were doing some great stuff. we have seen a lot of efforts, but things like rupert murdoch's daily have not excited us on a

journalistic level. but i think we are laying groundwork for some institutions that they possibly do that in the next three to five years. >> i'm wondering what you think it would take for it to go to that next level and provide quality journalism. >> i just want to offer a slight difference of opinion. i think that we are seeing a couple of things happen right now. they are positive things that are happening. while it may be true that the first wave of online-only journalism tended to be national and international criticism and opinion, which got the name of blogs, what we are actually seeing of the local level is something even more exciting than that. as newspapers have become challenged, and we have seen, sadly, the destruction of

capabilities of newspaper and local television stations and other media in the local arena, we are seeing a new layer journalism being created at the local level. some startups such as the "bases and close " in san francisco, "texas tribune" out in texas -- there have been others that attended some similar things -- are starting to use a digital- only medium to provide a layer of local coverage. after that, the other positive things that i see our outfits like -- are outfits like patch and yahoo!, which is looking to create semi-pro or citizen journalism to take place, a new layer, stuff that was not covered at all before. observational community-oriented journalism. things that might have been restricted to an e-mail newsletter