barn floor strength

[mainemarkincali]

I bought a house in New Hampshire and it has a 60k square foot barn with a concrete cellar floor but the cellar is to short from floor to ceiling to drive my hot rod van into. So since this barn was built to hold animals and tractors and such what would I need to do to make the first floor itself strong enough to drive and park my van inside during the winter months? Do I need some sort of engineer to come take a look? Or could I build a concrete block wall in the cellar under where I wish to park? Anyone have any ideas for me? I prefer to work outside in the sun most times so I would not be doing tons of work on it in the barn. Thanks for reading and I welcome any advice And Thanks for letting me join. Mark

 

[The Cobbler]

you're going to need an engineer, they will probably do core samples of the concrete, and you'll probably have to put footings in the basement floor. I don't think it will be an inexpensive task.

 

[RPH]

Some pictures would help. Also what was the barns purpose when in service? You do realize a bull can go a couple thousand pounds.

 

[Beags86]

A normal barn haymow will easily support a car.

 

[CJDave]

A 60,000 sf barn? Holy Toledo. That is a warehouse. Dave R.

 

[pbon]

I am in NH. In one barn, I filled in the 5’ cellar and poured a slab on top. But it was only a 20x30 barn. I also lowered the floor at the same time so there was not a ramp to drive in. I now have a 24x30 carriage house. There are newer concrete foundation walls in the cellar and a low concrete foundation in the middle with steel posts supporting steel beams that run across the 24’ width. At another 30x30 barn, it has the original floor. Some of the beams are just trimmed logs. There is no cellar, just a crawl space. There are posts and rocks supporting the beams in places. I have broken through before using floor jacks and a couple of the old beams are cracked and sagging. I don’t do any work in there anymore and try not to park in there except occasionally until we repair it (might be turned into living space instead when that happens).

 

[pbon]

Deleted

 

[Sevenhills1952]

I'll throw my 2 cents in.
I have a large garage here (not 60K sq. ft.!!!!!)
but the best thing I ever did was have the same contractor build a separate one car garage just a few feet from the big one.
The big garage has a furnace, it's nice, but not like the 1 car. The 1 car has 1 garage door (opener w/ remotes) and a walk in door. It's 30' x 15' (about), insulated, all walls pegboard, workbench.
My point is like your case it may be less expensive to just build a small shop like that for van. I heat it with a small propane heater.

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[mainemarkincali]

The size of the barn may be a misprint on my behalf, I say this because my wife told me the deed says otherwise. According to the deed it is approximately 2300 square feet. As for what it was originally used for all I know is the previous owners had chickens and sheep. But they were not the original family that built it. It was built in 1840. I will be there next month and see about finding an engineer. Thanks for all the help! Mark.