Once it was decided to demolish the pithouse and reuse materials in the kiva, I gathered a group of friends, family, and colleagues, and we made a day of it. Once again, Peter and Stella Pino came to help as did Lew Matis and Cindy Bradley. Karen Adams served as recorder and photographer. She wrote down comments and observations by all of us, but judiciously left out the occasional explicative. This is surely the best record of the entire kiva construction project. Thanks everybody.

Collapsed south wall of pithouse. After about 10 years of use and light maintenance, the south wall of the pithouse collapsed. During the winter thaw the ground became saturated on the south (uphill) side and the leaners collapsed down and in.	Pithouse roof from inside showing shakes on leaners. The rest of the roof remained fairly intact for a couple of years and it would have been possible to remodel the pithouse with relatively little effort.
Disassembly of pithouse roof. We began by stripping off the slabs and dirt from the top of the roof. We only used our hands and digging sticks to do this.
After removal of the slabs, dirt, and hatchway lining stones, the secondary beams were exposed and removed.
The next step was the removal of the dirt, shakes and leaners from the walls. The dirt was knocked into the pithouse and the shakes stripped as we proceeded downward. Many of the shakes were intact, but very dried out and brittle. We stockpiled them and reused some in the kiva roof, but more were abandoned by the pithouse.	Primary beam sitting on post notch. The pithouse had four large posts and two primary beams. The posts had been set into holes with the bottoms up and notched to hold the primaries. The four posts and two primaries became the lowest layer of cribbing in the kiva roof.
Levering out post. The posts had been well set into the pithouse floor and furthered anchored by the collapsed roofing dirt. We had to dig down around them into the floor level, and then devised a levering system to pull them out. Even this took a lot of effort.	Carrying beam from pithouse to kiva. After all the posts, beams and leaners were removed and piled, we carried them over to the kiva. The bases of many leaners and all the posts showed termite damage as well as some dry rot. Otherwise they were solid.

Kiva Roofing

Interior Finishing and Use

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