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Barn Restoration
In the summer of 2003,
I was faced with the same difficult decision that thousands of other barn owners have faced in recent decades with the vast majority taking a different path than the one I choose.
Years of neglect had finally taken its toll on the family barn. For quite some time the barn itself was of little use. It had rotted away and powder post beetles had weakened floor beams in all but one bay The roof was leaking, broken and missing windows and doors all indicated that the barn was doomed. Everything pointed to a lost cause.
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However, I was not ready to let it go, something inside of me pushed me to tackle the job of saving this barn that was so close to being just another pile of antique lumber. |
click on photos for larger version
RIGHT
The front view of the barn in
2003
the first week of the multi year project of restoring it to it's
former glory. missing doors and window were the least of the
problems
FAR RIGHT
Same barn four years later, still a project in progress,
however, no longer a barn in crisis. |
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Many factors played a roll in the decision to restore the family barn not least of which were the many childhood memories tied to the barn.
I was saddened by the unbelievable numbers of barns lost everyday only miles from my home and had the desire to insure that future
generations could enjoy this landmark of days gone by. Those factors helped in the decision making process and also helped me
stay motivated in this multi year project. My hope is that this article would encourage others to take the route I did and save
their barns. I was on an extremely limited budget and I only spent a few hundred dollars every few months over a few years.
I saved tens of thousands of dollar by doing the barn restoration myself. Moreover, I also saved tens of thousands of dollars
on material and I will show you how to do the same. |
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LEFT
Stressed from rotted
supporrts 34 foot hand hewn beams bend and twist from the strain
FAR LEFT
It was only after cleaning out all remaining manure from the cattle
pens and old hay from the loft that the full extent of the problems this barn faced become apparent.
click on photos for larger version
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The first step after cleaning out the barn was to make an actual list and set priorities. My barn was near complete structural
failure so the first priorities were easy to identify. The first structural saving project had to address the extreme bowing
of the side walls. I found that complete side walls failure is a very common event that dooms many old barns. stabilizing the
barn was the number one priority
RIGHT
Running steel aircraft type stainless steel cable the width of the barn with two anchor points on each sidewall main
beam then connecting both walls to one main turnbuckle was the procedure I used to stabilize the bowing wall problem.
Slowly over time, the turnbuckle was used for pulling the walls back into place. |
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Antique Farming Barn Facts
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The Barn
came in a number of different styles and configurations. Early farmers built their barns based on a traditional
barn design that the original colonists brought with them from England. By the 1900’s the gambrel roof barn
was the primary barn design used.
Whatever style was used the barn would be the centerpiece of the farmstead. Early advertising reflected the important role the
barn played. The majority of tractor and machinery ads feature the Barn as a backdrop.
LEFT
1922 Farm Mechanics magazine featuring a front cover highlighting the building of a barn addition .
BELLOW
Minneapolis Moline Co. was always a leader in attention getting advertisement. Most of their
beautifully
detailed and colorful ads had the barn as a back drop.
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Barn Restoration on a Extremely Limited Budget |
Barn Restore on a Budget
Restoring a barn can be an expensive undertaking. However, don't let a limited budget
stop you. I started my barn restoration project with virtually no money. I knew that my
greatest expense would be the roof. I was neither qualified nor brave enough to tackle
the roof job myself. The seven bids I obtained for a metal roof and gutters with downspouts
ranged from eight to twenty thousand dollars. A shingle roof was out of the question and the
cost of redecking added ten thousand dollars to all the roofing estimates. However, because
of the severely sagging roofline I had my work cut out for me. Since I still had to go to my
full time job every day, I spent most of my spare time for two years jacking, pulling and
undoing decades of neglect before I could have the roof installed.
Save Tens of Thousands of Dollars
My estimate is that I saved at least forty thousand dollars on my barn restoration.
Much of the estimated forty thousand dollars I saved on my barn restoration
came in the form of labor. However, I easily saved over 10,000 dollars in
material. You too can use some or all of the same tips I used to save your
hard-earned money. Here are some of the biggest money savers:
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Big Savings
Contact your local power company. When the electric company replaces utility
poles they discard the old poles and most of the supporting hardware. In my case,
I was able to obtain them free of charge. You will not be able to find stronger
more well suited hardware then that used on electric poles. Not only did I use
discarded utility poles extensively in my barn restoration, but the way I used
them added to the usability and storage ability of the barn
LEFT
The eye bolts and other hardware used on old electric
poles
are of
industrial
quality. You
simple cant
easily buy
hardware
of this
quality.. |
RIGHT
Electric poles being
squared on a make shift saw stand the stand is placed and
centered in front of an unseen tree for easy loading with
a simple come along
FAR RIGHT Squared
and ready for a new life as a barn beam. Notice the long beam, I
used a number of these to spam the entire depth of the
floor. Greatly increasing the floor weight capacity . |
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To “square” the electric poles I used a guide that mounted on a chainsaw. The quide then runs on a 2 X 6 that’s bolted to
the electric pole.
WARNING
Electric poles are treated with chemical preservative called Creosote. I knew very little about Creosote. However, one ninety-degree day I would learn a valuable lesson on the danger of this chemical substances. On this sunny hot day, I took off my shirt as I was squaring a pole. The combination of sweat, sun and Creosote sticking to my skin had me suffer from a extreme reaction. Despite realizing, something was wrong and showering immediately my upper body suffered from what seems like an extreme sunburn. So be warned and be careful
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Keep Your Eyes Open for bargains
Gather your supplies over time. Rummage sales, auctions, and eBay are all
great places to find the things you need. Getting a 10-ton hydraulic jack for
one dollar at a moving sale is a uncommon event. Because of the extremely poor
condition of my barn, these are some of things I had collected even before starting the job. Nothing that I had collected went unused. And I did not have too much of any one thing, in fact some items I could have used more of.
Six hydraulic jacks, 5 screw house jacks, one railroad jack, turnbuckles,
four come along and braided steel aircraft cables.
Had I bought the items listed above new and from a store I would have spent close to a thousand dollars. I spent less then $200 and I could have easily recouped most of the $200 by selling the tools upon completion of the job.
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Used Barn Wood
I live 30 miles North West of Milwaukee Wisconsin. When my barn was built
Wisconsin was establishing itself as the dairy capital of the world the
average farm was 100 acres and the average herd 24 head of milk cows.
Approximately every quarter mile was a farm with a barn and the typical
supporting farm buildings. Unfortunately, nearly all of the barns in my area are
gone. In just the last five years I can think of over ten barns in a five-mile
radius of my place that are gone forever, falling victim to subdivisions, golf
courses, and decay. I asked for permission and salvaged lumber from four barns only a
few miles from my own barn.
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TOP
The configuration of any barns hayloft for nonfarming use is an extreme waste of space . I took wood from
neighboring barns
that were ether collapsed or knocked down and created a twin level loft over one of the barn bays
RIGHT
The tamarack barn beans and old oak flooring I used for the barn loft in a (remove)barn loft were recycled from
barns where the "valuable" wood had already been removed. By using both the old wood and most of the same building
techniques used by the original builder of the barn I was able to double the storage space while keeping the historic "feel". |
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Savings from Damaged Goods
Almost every bag of cement, mortar and premix I bought was as much as 95% off
because the bags were damaged and leaked. In late spring Menards, Home Depot, and Fleet Farm have pallets full of damaged goods. This wasn't a time consuming one or two bags at a time deal. I recall purchasing two pallets of the above listed supplies at one time. The cost was about five cents on the dollar.
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Barn Restoration Continues
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FAR LEFT
Most of the floor
beams in this bay had rotted away. The repair has begun by
jacking the floor and sliding thirty four foot utility poles the
full width of the barn
LEFT
The
completed floor, all rotted beams are replaced and by
running six poles the full length of the floor a barn that was
designed for loose hay can now support some of the heaviest
tractors.
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In their rotted and weakened state the floor beams lacked of support and put continual forward
pressure on the barn causing the basement’s main support poles and main support beams to lean ,
By the time I began the project the lean was at an extreme and dangerous level.
RIGHT
The first main support pole to be replaced was the worst and
suffering form the greatest degree of lean. |
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Understand Cause and Effect
Whether your barn has multiple problems
and is on the verge of collapsing as mine was or you suspect a simple problem, it is important that you understand
what the cause of your problem is and how a particular solution will correct it. This is of critical importance
if you are hiring a contractor to fix your barn. Any barn
repair contractor who cannot clearly explain to you the cause of a problem and
how a particular solution will correct it should be avoided.
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Mortise and Tenons
It is a tribute to the overall sturdiness of the structure and the mortise and tenons
design that the bad corner did not sag more than a
few inches or so. |
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BARN RESTORATION
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This web page is about my experience of restoring my own barn and many of my tips are directed to people who may be
considering restoring their own barn. The fact is that barn restoration can be dangerous. I am by no means a structural
engineer but the fact is that a lot of farm kids are exposed to more mechanical and engineering principals by their
teens than many engineering students have seen when they leave college. If you are not comfortable or unsure about
something you want to attempt please don’t do it. Instead, consult a professional. |
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Gone Forever
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A sight that is all too common, both the above and below pictured barns were a stone’s throw of each other on two separate Wisconsin farmsteads.
Barns are disappearing at an alarming rate some like the barn below can still be saved while others as the above example reveals that
time has run out on this once icon of a time gone by
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Fieldstone Walls | |
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At one time, much of Wisconsin was covered with glaciers. The glaciers southern journey stopped short of the Illinois border. What these icy giants left behind would become the building blocks and foundations to most old Wisconsin barns.
The fieldstone walls on my barn are nothing short of impressive. The massive fieldstone wall stands three feet across and ten feet high. The walls stood firm despite the wooden structure of my pre restored barn leaned forward and putting pressure on the barns foundation.
Although most Wisconsin barns disappear because of neglect long after a barn has fallen the fieldstone wall remains. Despite these walls being built over a century ago be hand
They require some of today’s largest bulldozers to remove them.
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Barn Decoration | |
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One day on my way to my job in Milwaukee, I noticed a work crew gathering around a huge farmstead.
The farm was no longer a working operaration and the red flags in the entire surrounding farm
field made it obvious what the future had in store. Nine hours later the once proud barns that
stood on one the highest spots in the area were leveled. I stopped on the way home and talked
with the developer and he gave me permission to salvage what I could for my barn. The above
and below pictures are the only thing left of the farmstead. The window opening was once a
window dormer on a one hundred fifty year old square field stone silo. The field stone
silo was the tallest I had ever seen. The only thing left is now a decoration
in my restored barn.
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