Hi,
I’m building a 12′ x 21′ horse barn and it’s been a great learning experience. It my first project of this type and of course I’ve made some mistakes. It’s looking pretty good and I’m sure the horse will be happier this winter. The biggest challege was setting the rafters and getting everything square (some of it will never be!).
Here’s my question…It took me a couple of months working alone and with my wife’s help to get it framed up and get the roof on. The rafters and joist were exposed to the summer elements and numerous rain and dry cycles. The wood silvered and seems a bitter drier, but it still held my weight without a problem.
I’m worried that a couple of months exposure to the elements my have weakened the wood I used. I should mention I’m in Vermont and that this is a pole barn. I built it with a partial loft and a metal roof so the purlins and loft rafters were exposed as well. I see a lot of old barns with the roofs collapsing, but I suppose they’ve been around for a while :}
Anyway, thanks in advance for any discussion on the matter…
Lou N.
Replies
Shouldn't be a problem.
Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.
Usually the silver color is only skin deep after a couple months exposure. Twisted, bowed, cracked, warped, splintered, checked, rotted, etc lumber are things to worry about, but not the silvering. Silvered wood will not take to paint very well though, so any wood that is to be painted should be sanded or abraded to a solid surface.
Silvering is simply where the UV rays of the sun have broken down the top layer of wood cells. As mentioned, the lose cellular debris should be removed by sanding if you plan to paint it.
But most horse barns get no paint on the inside at least. Horses tend to chew on the wood and you don't want the paint in their diet. Hopefully you did not use PT.
Now, the next thing you will learn is that this is too small of a barn, LOL
Excellence is its own reward!
It seem women seem to collect horses more or less like men do with tools or guns.
At least you can pet, feed (care for) and talk to the horses. They talk back, too. And you can train and ride them.
They are interactive, in an emotionally more satisfying way than mostly noisy, inanimate tools.
Each has it's place.:-)
We interact with our tools. They, for the most part, produce income and some sense of self satisfaction.
Horses+ good money in one end= fertilizer out the other end.
I was teasing. Am a horse trainer, horses are my "tools".
Also we use them to work cattle, go along fences and check water and lines in the canyons, where you can't get to any other way but on foot, which would take forever.
I too am very protective of my tools, both kinds.
You are right that most inanimate tools don't have much of an "output" to clean after but, on the other hand, they don't neigh a greeting to you when they see you.:-)
DW raised and trained quater horses in her younger days. Now she raises and trains Cardigan Welch Corgis. Less "output" form them and much poorer quaility than we got from the horses <G>.
Dave
Yes, poor quality if less disposal problems with dogs, but think that you can have a lap warmer in the evenings while relaxing, something that those horses would have had a hard time living up to.
On that silvery look to the exposed lumber, the initial poster can think of it as "weathered", giving character to that wood.:-)
Weathered and unpainted will last forever out in your part of the country, if the sand doesn't wear it out first. But Vermont gets wetter, I hear,
;)
If you are canyon land, you must be withing spitting distance of the N Mex border.
Excellence is its own reward!
Yes, we are a skip and a jump from NM.
Our area has it's own "Grand Canyon", a miniature one.
With as little rain as we get, it only runs after a sizeable, quick downpour. Then, wouldn't you know, it floods.
Wood here dry-rots. Lived in North NY state for a while and remember their old weathered barns having dark stripes down them. Beautiful country that.
Yes, paint will protect wood anywhere, even here.
Gee whiz.. I been here a few years and never welcomed anybody, now you and Eddy show up with a first post on the same day an' nobody else already said it so:
HOWDY!!, Welcome,etc
Answer: Your are in good shape, the previous posts gave you some good rationale.
Thank you all for the replies regarding my barn building project. Over the years we have had all sorts of animals, but the horse is by far the largest. He definitely puts out his share of fertilizer, but the gardeners at work recycle that (some of it anyway!) for their plants and flowers.
I'm enjoying the project, most of it anyway, and it's a good excuse to buy new tools.
Thanks again...
Finish your barn and here is your first possible customer....
http://www.journalstandard.com/articles/2003/09/04/local_news/news21.txt
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
I'm in Vt. also. There's no way to avoid the exposure after a summer like we had. It won't damge anything.
Lou,
Don't you worry, a couple of months won't do a thing.
I have a house near Pawlet and I can tell you that the collapsing roofs that you see have more to do with the houses not being framed adequately to support those slate roofs. OR the footings are not down enough and it causes the frames to start moving around. As long as you sized the lumber up so that it would be adequate for the spans, you should be fine.
my first project of this type and of course I've made some mistakes....
Then there are other kinds of mistakes.
Looked at a barn / loafing shed w/ severe roof leaks this AM.
The way the tin is installed (horizontally) it is on upside down. All 3800 feet of it.
Horizontal lapping is uphill.
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....