Replacing barn foundation

Pig in a poke · #21 08/21/13, 09:46 AM

myheaven,
Not sure if you are aware, in Wisconsin, your have both the federal and a state tax credit program for rehabilitation of historic structures. To receive the federal tax credit, the property must be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For the state tax credit, the property only needs to be deemed eligible for listing, which is determined as part of the application process. The application appears very straight-forward, you'd just need to provide a history of the place. (Our firm did a project for the WI Historical Society, is how I am familiar with the program.) It might be worth looking into, if you decide to rehab using limestone to match the original foundation.
It is a beautiful barn.

TNHermit · #22 08/21/13, 10:31 AM

I started my carpentry career at 15 replacing barn foundations. Your gonna need some heavy duty jacks

Every where the main support posts are you build a square about 2 ft x 2ft out of railroad ties. or equivalent Oak, Maple. When you get to where the jacks can be used you put a solid run of railroad ties on to to support the jack. you then proceed to jack all the way around until you get it up a few inches. Then crib it up and put your foundation in between the squares you built. Once you get the foundation in you will be within a foot of each post and be able set the barn back down and fill in. Take out one crib at a time and build one pier at a time till your done Almost easier to do then explain

You cant just run an I beam under it as the posts are the main support of each bent unlike a house

Its a nice long term project

Safety is no 1. NO stupid human tricks

myheaven · #23 08/21/13, 11:54 AM

I know it will be a long winter project. We will be adding a lot if support joist. You can see in post 3 how little cross support there is. But this barn was built in 1920. The has was loose stored back then. Not the big rounds like we have today. We will have 22 acres of large trees to select from to make new beams. We have currently 33 rail Road ties. We had to jack our current house to add supports so we have 10 or 20 ton bottle jacks. I'm not sure the tonnage but their heavy duty.
Good news is just 10 miles down the road is a historic lime stone quarry. Can u say sweet. Replacement stone may not be hard to come by.

myheaven · #24 08/21/13, 12:07 PM

This is the side that gave way. It's to the left of the big doors. I see a little par of a gutter but it just dumps it at the base of the barn.

o&itw · #25 08/21/13, 03:30 PM

What you want to do is "needle" the affected walls immediately. Whether you use I beams or railroad ties or timbers donesn't really matter, use what you have access to. In the spirit of history, I would tear out the stone walls, pour a concrete foundation and then get a good masson to rebuild the walls, of course poured concrete walls would be just fine structurally. You might want to replace the sill on the bottom of the wall before you let it back donw on the new foundation. or.... let it back down, place your temporary supporting timbers parallel to the wall on the joists, and then jack it back up to replace the sill.

TNHermit · #26 08/21/13, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by myheaven

I know it will be a long winter project. We will be adding a lot if support joist. You can see in post 3 how little cross support there is. But this barn was built in 1920. The has was loose stored back then. Not the big rounds like we have today. We will have 22 acres of large trees to select from to make new beams. We have currently 33 rail Road ties. We had to jack our current house to add supports so we have 10 or 20 ton bottle jacks. I'm not sure the tonnage but their heavy duty.
Good news is just 10 miles down the road is a historic lime stone quarry. Can u say sweet. Replacement stone may not be hard to come by.

Looks to me like those joist were an after thought or sometime later. They are way undersize. I wouldn't trust them to hold anything. What you need to do is after you have a new foundation then run an I beam support in the middle of the joists. or wood with posts every few feet. Mkae sure your footer is deep enough and you hve nice wide blocks or poured on the bottom. I would pour a 3x3 rebarred under each post as you reinstall the piers

unregistered353870 · #27 08/21/13, 09:30 PM

Buy it for sure if you like the property! Nice barn and won't be too expensive to save it. I love projects like that, but I would use the condition as a bargaining chip when you make an offer on the property.

myheaven · #28 08/21/13, 09:43 PM

We will submit our offer tomorrow. Sweet!

Michael W. Smith · #29 08/21/13, 09:53 PM

It sounds like you and your spouse are already "handy" with fixing things.

Are there any Amish in the area? They build barns all the time and can also fix them. Or just hire someone to "guide you" or that can help you as you fix it.

It's a beautiful barn!! It's so very much worth saving. It makes me sick to my stomach the old barns around here that no one does anything with (because they aren't worth it) and then you gradually see them fall apart and collapse.

They don't build barns like that anymore.

Hope you can buy it and make this your new dream property. Good luck!

myheaven · #30 08/21/13, 11:03 PM

We have a lot of Amish around our county. The town it's in has a huge Amish influence. There is even an Amish store. If the offer is accepted I plan to go place an ad for help.

ncchickenmama · #31 08/22/13, 08:19 AM

What a beautiful historic barn! I highly recommend replacing the foundation in-kind (with limestone) in order to preserve it. Depending on the skilled trades profession wherever you are you may be able to find a good stone mason who can help you with it if you need help.

I'm an architectural historian/historic preservation specialist by profession, and have a lot of experience with National Register nominations/eligibility/architectural surveys for state and federal projects. If you could get it listed on the National Register, as the above poster was mentioning, you would qualify for state and federal tax credits. The application process, however, can take quite a bit of time and effort in preparing but it certainly can save you a good deal of $$ if you are able to take advantage of it. If you decide to go this route, I would recommend getting in touch with your state historic preservation office in order to learn more about the tax credit application as well as how to prepare your own nomination form for NR eligibility. When I've prepared successful nominations in the past, the entire process takes about a year from the time you start until the time it is actually listed on the register. But being in Wisconsin it may be different and quicker (I'm in North Carolina).

These days we are losing our country's beautiful historic barns SO fast! It is scary how few intact historic farmsteads are actually left. I know this because for my job I go and out and survey all the time and see what's out there and what has been lost. On average I find that from surviving historic properties surveyed in the 1980s and early 1990s, about 30%-40% are now gone. I hope you can save it!

Molly Mckee · #32 08/22/13, 08:42 AM

We did fix a barn years ago, in the sixties and it is still standing.
A door frame broke with the loft full of hay. My DH jacked it up with machine jacks (the kind you used to level big machines in factories), replaced the door frame and fixed the wall with the stone that had fallen and concrete. He was able to do it without unloading the hay as he didn't want anyone in the barn to unload it. Thanks to the jacks it was easier than we expected!

myheaven · #33 08/22/13, 09:51 AM

The loft is mostly empty. The addition has like 10 snowmobiles. Going to request owner not remove them till we shore up the side. I hope he will comply.

myheaven · #34 08/26/13, 04:52 PM

Tomorrow we get answer if he rejects or approves our offer! I'm so desperate to know the answer

tasher · #35 08/27/13, 10:51 AM

myheaven -

Thanks for sharing this project. I'm excited for you, for the property and the barn project. I'm going to watch this thread so please keep us updated. Our new property has a large barn too - and I was going to post a similar thread (I won't hijack yours). I've been impressed with all the experience people have had and are contributing.

Our issue is the roof trusses have been reinforced from timbers to 3x treated 2x6, but I can't figure out what's truly holding the place up. And when I was trying to figure out the vertical support structure I can see the cement floor, with the cow drain in it, is all cracked and heaved. So I think we'll try to find and hire someone to inspect it and give us direction. Like I said though - I will take some pics and post my own thread, I'm just excited to follow yours.

Let us know if you get the place!

myheaven · #36 08/28/13, 01:25 PM

Still waiting on word from my realtor. My poor husband is getting so crabby. He has no patients when it come to this stuff. Poor guy is so crabby.