Heritage Commission Approves Certificate For New House In 400 Block Of Merchant St.

Carl Noll quickly received a Certificate of Appropriateness during the February 19 Heritage Commission meeting to build a single-family house at 472 Merchant St.

The house will sit where a circa 1890 wood-framed I-house sat before being damaged by a fire in 2013 and demolished in 2015.

Noll said it will essentially be on the footprint of the former house.

“I’m going to build a house up there [on an] empty lot,” Noll said. “You’ll have tax money coming in for a house.”

He said he intends to use quality materials.

“I’m trying to build a nice house and up-scale it a little bit,” Noll said. “There’s a demand for nicer structures.”

The only discussion arose over the use of vinyl windows and siding instead of wood.

Commission vice chair Frank Myers asked why Noll had decided to go with vinyl instead of wood.

“It’s a matter of cost,” Noll said.

He said he would have preferred wood and would use it if he “could get it for another half as much.”

“Wood is three times what this is,” Noll said about vinyl siding. “The same thing with the windows. Whether they’re wood or vinyl, it doesn’t matter; the biggest item on there is glass. The problem with wood windows is they have to make a wood sash and they either cover it with vinyl or they cover it with aluminum. So you’ve got an extra expense there. The vinyl frame is actually a better conductor.”

Noll said wood windows cost twice as much as vinyl ones.

“I’ve heard that story many times,” Myers said.

See complete story in the February 27 edition of the Herald.