TOOLS, CONSTRUCTION, ALTERNATIVE ENERGY > Shops Garages and Barns

Small Barn Construction

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moto123:
I decided that I needed an out building, barn or shed of some sort to keep my tractor and implements out of the weather.  After researching the available options, I wasn't completely satisfied with the durability or cost and wanted to build it myself.  Luckily when I bought the property there were several older telephone poles left from when they replaced the line on our road.  So I got to work building the largest structure that I could with the size materials available and that I could reasonably accomplish on my own before winter.

Step 1 was to clear all the trees, brush and re-grade the area flat.  I don't have any before pictures.  But here is what it looked like when I started to layout where I was going to place the posts.

moto123:
The next step was to drill the holes, clean them out, level them the best I could by eye and drop the posts in.  The were all set at the full depth of what the auger could dig, so about 4 feet down.  The winters in our area of IL require that most construction has footings at least 3 foot underground I think, but I wasn't sure of the exact depth so I wanted to be plenty deep.

moto123:
After that the posts were tamped in and leveled.  The tops were all cut with the chainsaw into a V in preparation for the main beams.  We selected the straightest trees we could find, the larger one was already dead and the smaller one was partially dying anyway.  Cut them down and dragged them back.  My son was a great help peeling the bark!





This is where I began to deviate from the original plan.  I wanted to frame the entire roof with lumber I had in the woods.  Unfortunately after further investigation, the trees I have down and ready to cut up are not very straight.  Those all came down with a recent storm.  The only trees straight enough were over 50 feet tall.  I couldn't bring myself to cut down healthy trees for my project, so off to the lumber yard we went.  I guess I would rather use healthy trees from someone else's property than my own.

moto123:
This decision also sped up the roof framing time considerably.

moto123:
It should be noted that each post to beam connection has a heavy metal strap over the top of the beam to hold it down into the V notch at the top of the post.  Also there are two 12" metal spikes that were pounded down though the beam into the post.  I fully expected to add diagonal bracing of some sort at each joint, but when I was installing the layer of 1/2" plywood on the roof I could basically jump side to side at the top of the peak and the roof didn't sway at all in any direction.  So I never did install any diagonal bracing.

More to follow...

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