The Slow Motion Retirement Plan

[vtsnowedin]

That is interesting that you don't have top plates and only have a truss at each wall post. I'm used to double or even triple top plates and trusses on 24" centers. Just a matter of how strong the trusses are built and the strength of the roof purlins between them. I do like that connection detail.

 

[dhagood]

That is interesting that you don't have top plates and only have a truss at each wall post. I'm used to double or even triple top plates and trusses on 24" centers. Just a matter of how strong the trusses are built and the strength of the roof purlins between them.

it's not what i'm used to either, but cleary has been doing it this way for a long time and their structures hold up pretty well. the trusses upper and lower chords look to be 2x8 with 2x4 purlins. the purlin sections overlap a considerable distance as seen below.

there are 4 diagonal struts on the end wall with the garage doors that connect the bottom chord of the end truss with the top chord of the next interior truss. on the other end wall, there are two of these struts. the struts are at least 10 feet long, and notice the face nailed 2x4 stiffener on top.

this is the attachment of the lower end of the porch roof rafter to its support. once again, i like how cleary does this.

my wife is old school. tractors should be green. barns should be red. and yessireebob, that's red.

and me? i planted a tree.

 

[KevT]

And a mighty fine tree that is you planted.

 

[vtsnowedin]

There used to be a good reason most barns were red. Do you remember what it is?

 

[dhagood]

red paint was the cheapest?

 

[vtsnowedin]

Nope! Red "Barn paint" didn't have any lead in it and you didn't have to worry about the calves etc. licking and chewing it off the wall and getting lead poisoning.

 

[dhagood]

i didn't know that vt, thanks for the info.

 

[Nelstomlinson]

Good paint had red lead. Before epoxy, red lead paint was one of your best bets for a lasting finish. I never heard that folks worried about calves getting lead poisoning. I would have guessed that barn paint had no lead because iron oxide was cheaper than lead oxide. Worry about low levels of lead is a modern fad.

 

[KevT]

It is said before the days of "Paint" farmers used to soak the barn wood with linseed oil, and the more wealthy farmers added blood from slaughtered animals, and the regular folks used iron oxide (rust) both gave the oil some body to make it last longer, and both would change color in time. Not until "Paint" was used were barns a true red. Most farmers wanted their barns a different color to contrast with the white farm houses, and rust was easy to come by

 

[dhagood]

the weather has been very uncooperative lately. at the same time, the weather has cooperated nicely. it just kinda depends on which aspect of progress you're looking at.

on the barn building front, the weather has been iffy for most of the week. to wit, it has rained. it has rained often and rained hard. this is bad for building barns, especially when you're trying to put the roof on. the cleary crew been driven offsite three times by heavy rain. they have struggled with greasy, glutinous mud trying to get their non four wheel drive pickup into and out of our property and up and down the the loose dirt track that will some day be the road into the house and barn complex. they got the large half of the roof up one day and then it started to rain. today it spit and sputtered most of the day until it settled down to rain in earnest, so they worked on sheathing the end walls. since any amount of moisture on the dust-caked steel roofing turns them into a slanted ice rink, i have no interest in getting up 12 feet off the ground and trying to get on or off a ladder and i certainly don't expect them to do it.

they got all of one end wall done.

they got the middle two sections of sheathing up on the end wall with the garage doors before they left, but i didn't take any pictures showing that (because it was raining cats and dogs).

and of course, the weather is cooperating because rain. lots of lovely, soaking, rain. long may it continue, even if the blasted mosquitoes will now come out in force.

 

[dave1949]

You have mosquitoes? That surprises me since you don't have much standing water?

That rain will green things up and give your trees a good start.

The barn is looking good.

 

[wmonroe]

Nice looking barn!

 

[dhagood]

You have mosquitoes? That surprises me since you don't have much standing water?

while we don't have much standing water we do have some.

this pond, and another like it downstream, are dry more than they are wet.

this pond has water in it almost all the time. there are some other very small bodies of water around and there can be mosquitoes about.

this is how things stand at the moment. no work has been done in several days and i'll just have to wait for the rain to stop. you probably have no idea how rare it is around here to say that.

it has looked like this every afternoon for over a week. pretty remarkable. and yes, this will help the trees and the grass.

there is always a downside, of course, beyond the slow barn abuilding.

drainage. i got to get me some.

 

[vtsnowedin]

I wonder if some trees around that biggest pond would help shade it and keep it wet longer or if the trees would suck up the water and make it worse. You westerners will probably know.

 

[dave1949]

It looks like you need to move a good number of yards of dirt on the high side of the barn, plus maybe cut the bank a bit to get a non-eroding, mowable slope.

Cottonwood is a typical tree to grow along a drainage in the west? Maybe some cottonwood trees along that water seep would form a shelter belt that would protect other tree species from wind desiccation during dry spells? I'm thinking a stand of trees would do better than singular ones as they would begin to build their own micro-climate perhaps.

 

[dhagood]

and here we are.

cleary is not officially done; the crew needs about another 3 feet of j-shaped flashing to provide a water channel at the right door header. other than that however, it's complete. a thoroughly professional job of design, construction, and management in my estimation. is it perfect? nope. is it better than i could have done? absolutely. was it worth the money? it was far more than i wanted to pay, but yes, it was worth it.

oh, and i got my wife a little mother's day present.

is it just me, or are our necks getting a little redder? orange maybe?

 

[dhagood]

Any guesses on what she'll buy you for Father's day?

i would have said she would buy me a cement mixer because i had delusions of mixing and pouring a partial slab in the barn by myself. that bit of idiocy didn't last very long, thank heaven. i'm thinking a used bush hog would be very useful.

most construction activities have coming to a soggy halt. it keeps on raining.

oh wait, that's not rain. life at 6600 feet elevation...

 

[vtsnowedin]

Oh that will green up nice after that rain.