GEORGE TOWN: What do termites and cement have in common in Penang? They do not go well with heritage buildings.

From the Chief Minister’s official residence to the Town Hall at the Esplanade and the courthouse in Light Street, keeping these venerable buildings in good shape is time-consuming and costly.

Few are more familiar with the challenges of conserving such buildings than Penang Island City Council (MBPP) Heritage Conserva­tion director Danny Koay.

“We must supervise restoration work on-site ourselves. If we are not there, contractors sometimes use cement,” he said.

Koay said cement must never be used to patch walls of buildings built in the 1800s.

“Those days, the chief material was lime plaster and if we try to repair the broken plaster with cement, it will not fuse with the original material.

“But lime plaster is a traditional preparation and we need specialist contractors who know how to prepare it,” he said.

Lime plaster, he said, was more expensive than cement and more tedious to prepare.

Koay said the Town Hall was off-limits for now because termites had hollowed out several sections of the wooden floorboards.

Contractors will have to source for teak wood floorboards to refurbish the interior.

He said MBPP was calling for tenders and aimed to restore the Town Hall for public use by next year.

Work on restoring the garden with a fountain beside the Town Hall has begun.

Also suffering the same fate as City Hall is Seri Teratai, the Chief Minister’s official residence.

Built in the early 1900s, Seri Teratai has been unoccupied since 2009 after former chief minister Lim Guan Eng stayed in it but was appalled by the extent of repairs and refurbishments needed.

The state Public Works Depart­ment expects to take another five years before the residence can be made habitable again.

Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow announced he would move into Seri Teratai soon after he took office in June as he lives in Balik Pulau and it can take him up to 90 minutes to get to his Komtar office on a bad traffic day.

However, repairs estimated at RM1.2mil have put his plans on hold.