Barn Floor

[Von]

Bxmark,
Here are some photos of my barn that was built in the mid 1800's. The floor is white pine 2"x6" TG and the joist are 2" x 8" on 16" centers. It has held up to all the horses and I have had my jeep in it as well. I think most older barns have wood floors and they seem to all be standing. With what little weight you are going to be putting on the floor, wood will be fine.

 

[dummy]

Thanks for the insert help

 

[beenthere]

And it looks like the 2x8's shown in the pic are notched out to sit on a 2x2 ledge (lintel) on the main beam, which means they are just 2x6's holding up the load. So, wood is still good. Just do the careful design needed, and work to keep the wood dry so it will not rot.

 

[ric]

Youare, Let me clarify your architecture a little. Doing the math it seems you probably dug your 24x26 rectangle down up to 16" to bring an 8" joist, then a 6" joist then a 2" floor back to grade. At the bottom of this excavation you drilled somewhere between 16 and 20 six foot holes to stand the railroad ties on end to create your floor "pilings". Is this close? How does this ventilate? How are the joists attached to the "pilings and each other? How are the walls attached to the floor? Thanks, ric

 

[jimgerken]

Along these same lines, are there any other pavement alternatives we could be considering? Concrete is of course the ultimate, but there may be some old farmers' secret method or new-fangled technology I am not aware of. I did a search on the internet for "concrete alternative", "pavement alternative", etc, but did not come up with anything but paver stone. Seems to me that i've heard people talk of using crushed limestone dust (also known as lime or lime screenings), and watered it after leveling and packing. Does anyone know of this? Does it work? How about blending oil and water to form a better binder? What about "choride" like they apply to my gravel road each spring for dust control, it makes the road pack into a concrete-like finish and stay that way till they grade it. Are there other ideas which could be accomplished without the massive concrete truck crossing my yard to my new storage barn? Thanks!

 

[cowboydoc]

Jim,
The lime screenings actually work very well! I use them in my stalls and for my turn-out pens. When it packs down it's like concrete. The horses can't paw in it like dirt and it doesn't erode away either.

 

[Chuck52]

I used what's called "rock waste" to partially level my barn site. It was $60 per load vs $100 for gravel. It has some maybe 0.5-0.75 inch stuff in it but is mainly smaller-to-dust. It packs down really well after getting wet. Of course it makes a dusty surface, as my wife reminds me when I track it in in my waffle-soled shoes.

Chuck

 

[gerard]

You can use stone dust, which are the fine grindings left after the stone crushing operation is done, then mix in a bag of dry concrete with a rototiller, 1 bag per square yard, spread and tamp and you'll get a pretty durable surface. I first saw the concept in a home building magazine and they were using it a low cost outdoor basketball court. I've done it in my horse stalls with good results. It's a little dustier but a heck of a lot cheaper than either the wood floor or actual concrete.

 

[Egon]

Look at CowBoyDoc and Gerads Notes and take heed. It would probably be the cheapest, quickest and easy way to go. The hardest part is getting it all nice and level but if you lay down several pipes and use you loader to backblade over them and then move one pipe over and do it all again till the complete width is covered you should get a good job. Use spirit level or ? to level the pipes before you backblade. The edges can be done by hand with a long board.
Many roads have a subbase called soil cement. It can be mixed in place as Gerad suggested but on large road projects its usually mixed in a plant for quality control.
Egon