[MassHistPres] solar panels in historic districts

[Willa Bandler]

On Fri, 2 Sep 2011, slater at alum.rpi.edu wrote:

> It's the age-old joke: "I have an axe that has been in my family for 200
> years. The blade has been replace 5 times and the handle has been
> replaced twice".

I'm familiar with this through the book "The Same Ax Twice" 
(http://www.amazon.com/Same-Ax-Twice-Restoration-Throwaway/dp/1584650281), 
and while I take your point that an object still has meaning even when 
gradual restoration has left no original material, I also find that 
historic material has already proved itself merely by still being around. 
That is, it's not that "things were better made in the past" so much as 
that only the best things have survived and thus extant historic things 
are usually inherently high-quality (or just lucky flukes). I have no way 
of knowing if a modern replacement is going to match the historic 
material's quality in the long run, so leaving it as intact as possible is 
lower-risk.

-Willa