Pole Barn Addition

[BoylermanCT]

Installed the post protectors / guard rails today, except the last one which I measured 99 and cut 95! Then had 12 yards of fill delivered and used it to raise the ground under the overhang so it is level and we will store our firewood in cages. Tomorrow we get gravel for the top coat and the last rail.

 

[BackRoad]

Hope you get many years of enjoyment from it!

 

[BoylermanCT]

Finished the lean to today. Brought in 3 yards of gravel to do the firewood storage area under the overhang and filled in the trailer parking spots. Put in the last rail and nailed the 2x12’s of the two main beams together. Inspector comes Monday morning.

No more big construction projects for me. Already on the docket for next Spring is a new chicken coop and then a new deck which will go where the old chicken coop is now. The list never seems to end, but I like it that way!

 

[bindian]

I am confused about the fencing. I mean there are no gates, so your tractor can still get out.
???
hugs, Brandi

 

[BoylermanCT]

The fence acts as a guardrail to protect the posts in case while backing a trailer into its parking spot you decide to try and take out one or more of the posts. I'd rather slide along a rail instead of taking a post out. The one less than ideal part about the addition is there is no room to back straight in. You are pulling a 90 degree turn while backing.

 

[bindian]

The fence acts as a guardrail to protect the posts in case while backing a trailer into its parking spot you decide to try and take out one or more of the posts. I'd rather slide along a rail instead of taking a post out. The one less than ideal part about the addition is there is no room to back straight in. You are pulling a 90 degree turn while backing.

Guess you got a small trailer. Then it would make sense. My GN would take the fence and post out.
hugs, Brandi

 

[EddieWalker]

How steep is that dirt? I always think about mowing and making my slopes as gentle as possible.

 

[BoylermanCT]

We have 2 trailers, an 18' 10K enclosed box trailer and a 20' 14K equipment trailer. The hope is we are paying attention enough that we see when we come close to the 2x6 rails so we don't actually hit them. Even if we break the rails, it costs $20 and takes 10 minutes to replace. Replacing a 6x6 post is a little more work! I will try to rely less on the Force and more on mirrors and spotters when backing the trailers into the shed!

Eddie, the slope won't be mowed. We will make it a mulch bed and maybe plant some bushes and impatiens for landscaping. But that will wait until Spring.

 

[BoylermanCT]

Doing some upgrades to the trailer storage shed. Adding overhead LED lights, outlets at front and back for charging trailer batteries etc, adding coach lights to the posts and then adding a 220 volt heater to the shop in the barn. Had the day off, was above freezing and not raining so tackled the overhead lights.

 

[BoylermanCT]

Today I hooked up a 220 volt 5000 watt heater in the shop. It’s set over the workbench about 7’ high on the wall. There is no chance it will heat up the building but it makes a great warming station when you are out there working. I decided not to hardwire the heater and instead used a 4 prong dryer plug so I have a second 220 volt plug in the shop area that can be used for other things besides the heater.

 

[Alan46]

Today I hooked up a 220 volt 5000 watt heater in the shop. It’s set over the workbench about 7’ high on the wall. There is no chance it will heat up the building but it makes a great warming station when you are out there working. I decided not to hardwire the heater and instead used a 4 prong dryer plug so I have a second 220 volt plug in the shop area that can be used for other things besides the heater. View attachment 777605

Nice and a second 220 as a bonus!

 

[BoylermanCT]

Added 2 outlets at the front and back of the shed on the center posts.Main use is for charging the battery for the winch on the equipment trailer and the battery on the dump trailer. The outlet in the back is for charging a battery on a pontoon boat which is on our someday wish list. Figured I’d be prepared! I run all my wire in PVC conduit. Looks nicer and avoid critter and other issues.

 

[EddieWalker]

You can never have too many outlets!!!!

 

[wolc123]

You can never have too much covered storage area, that’s for sure. I recently replaced (2) old post and beam barns that my great great grandfather built in the late 1800’s with a pole barn. I’d have liked to have saved those old barns, but the roofs and foundations were failing and it would have cost way more than the new build.

I dismantled the old barns as carefully as I could, using much of the hand hewn posts and beams and lumber (mostly American Chestnut), for interior work (shops, loft, etc) in the shell of the new metal (Stockade) building.

The old barns were each 36’ wide x 46’ long with 16’ high wall. With them, I had plenty of inside storage for all of my tractors, equipment, recreational toys, and firewood.

The new build is 36’ wide x 50’ long, with (2) 10’ x 25’ porches. I consolidated equipment and sold a few tractors and it seemed like that would be plenty of space. My original intent was to use the back 10 x 25 porch for firewood storage. I find myself now needing more space, so I am enclosing that porch, and adding a new, 7 ft wide lean to, to the back of that, for firewood storage.

My firewood shed will be built with rafters, posts, and beams, recovered from the old barns, and roofed with leftover tin panels from the pole barn build (each bundle of gray tin was protected with a green sheet of the same gauge metal and those are what I am using the cover the lean to).

It sure is nice to have your firewood under a roof compared to tarps like I have been struggling with the last 5 years during this barn replacement project.

 

[wolc123]

I’ve always heard, that it is is best to build bigger than you think you need from the start, rather than add on later. I would have loved to have ran the side porch of my new pole barn, the full 50 ft length. That would have given me plenty of covered storage space for firewood, and wouldnt have cost that much at the time.

I couldn’t do that, because one of great grandad’s old 1800’s post and beam barns was still standing next to it when I put it up. It was leaning towards the new pole barn, and I left what I hoped was enough space for it to fall down that way.

My measurements were very close , and it came within 1/4” of striking the 25 ft long side porch when it fell. I tried pulling the old barn down the opposite way with my largest tractor. The main end crossbeam, to which I cabled the tractor, snapped during the pull

and the old barn crashed down towards the new one in the direction it had been leaning. No harm was done to the new barn’s 25 ft long side porch. A 50 footer would have been mostly demolished.

 

[BoylermanCT]

Nice barn! I had the same thing, an existing 40x50 barn built in the late 1700's. No way to save it as everything - foundation, floor, walls, roof were failing. It had chestnut beams. So I had it torn down and hauled off at a cost of $10K. Then I built my 30x40 on the same spot.

 

[bindian]

I am bewildered listening to Y'all who had your post and beam barns tore down and paid someone to do it. Barns from the 1700s and/or 1800s with post and beams and barn wood.............they should have paid you for that wood.
hugs, Brandi

 

[wolc123]

I am bewildered listening to Y'all who had your post and beam barns tore down and paid someone to do it. Barns from the 1700s and/or 1800s with post and beams and barn wood.............they should have paid you for that wood.
hugs, Brandi

One of the problems with that is matching up the supply with the demand. If those beams are left outside and uncovered thru the winter, up north on the Canadian border where I am, they basically turn into powder in a year.

When I took down the first old barn, I saved as much of the wood as I could. Some of that I sold and some I repurposed, inside the new barn. I covered it with tarps outside, thru the first winter.

I also tarped most of the good beams that I saved from the one I took down last summer. I’ll use some of them to make the woodshed out back and sell the rest. I’ve sold some of the siding boards and stored some up in my new loft, for use in enclosing the back porch, etc. I’ve probably sold 5-6 grand worth of the old beams and siding boards so far.

I saved lots of the interior
“grainery” wood. I like the looks of it inside my new barn. The shops I made from it and the beams have the color and feel of my great great grandad’s old barns. That virgin-forest American chestnut color cant be matched or replaced, nor can the axe marks on those hand-hewn beams.

The beams were challenging to work with compared to today’s dimensional lumber. I shimmed many of them to make my loft floor level. That loft floor is made from the old barn’s chestnut 1” thick, rough -sawed roofing boards, topped with 4x8 sheets of 5/8” OSB.


The last old barn was built in 1883 and had the year cut into the siding under the front peak. I pulled the “18” board down intact and used that inside the new shell, which went up in 2018. I tried to match the text on another for the “20” with a jigsaw.

 

[bindian]

That is great and the photos are awesome. But Y'all old barn owners gotta understand that people pay YOU to take them down. They take them down in a couple of days or so and truck the wood to their yards or customers to live another day. You don't have to lift a finger.
Waiting to watch a barn fall down on it's own is just sad.
hugs, Brandi

 

[BoylermanCT]

I am bewildered listening to Y'all who had your post and beam barns tore down and paid someone to do it. Barns from the 1700s and/or 1800s with post and beams and barn wood.............they should have paid you for that wood.
hugs, Brandi

Brandi, only in the movies does it work that way. I advertised my barn for 6 months prior to demolition. First I offered it for sale, then I offered it for free. I contacted Barnwood Builders to see if they wanted it. I called 8 companies who deal in reclaimed lumber. No takers. The best offer was from fellow firefighters in town who offered to torch it in exchange for beer and pizza. But my garage was 10 feet from the barn, and we could not figure out how not to burn down the garage too.

Here's the tear down in 1 minute. Took 60 minutes in real time.

They used a 27 ton excavator to do the tear down.