The swedish barn

[plexxarn]

The Swedish barn

Hi
I've been hanging here on GJ most evenings since 2011 when we bought our place.
Not sure how to describe the property. Its not farm, but more than just a house. In fact it used to be an old riding scool so we have about 3 acres of land, some old buildings, a small stable and an old barn.
This thread will be about the barn and how I restore it into a garage. I have been working on the barn since 2011. It has come a long way, and I have a lot of pics that I now will start to share with you in a number of weekly updates.

This is how the barn looked when we moved in. I think it is from the 50s or 60s. Just a simple pole construction with a loft floor currently used for the occasional summer partys. The external staircase is perfectly safe after having some beers up there
The poles are standing on some concrete lumps. It has three big doors of random size and a smaller door. To the far right is a lean-to.
The floor is just gravel. The size of the barn is 6x9.5m (20x31ft)





The inside was cluttered with the kind of stuff people keep in their barns .
this is looking in through the left door:




In the left corner there was an old staircase to the loft:




The small door to the right led to a separate room:

 

[AZ Pete]

subscribed

 

[domecreek]

Awesome Barn - Subscribed !

 

[Vieux]

Will follow the theme! Subscribe!

 

[1/2 Cup]

WOW, what potential

Looking forward to following your progress.

 

[jocke_c]

Blir intressant att följa

 

[CuoreSportivo]

Greetings from the other side of the water ;-)

I look forward to following your thread... it can't go wrong, when you look at the exciting starting point!

Let the pictures flow ...

Sincerely,

Jacob

 

[roscoe2000]

I'm partial toward older construction...a building with history and character. Please keep the pics coming. I can see an awesome spot in the makings.

 

[Bib Overalls]

A real challenge. I'm interested in seeing your plan and how you execute it. Will it be a year round work space or just a place to garage vehicles.

 

[Jacko]

that just ooozes character. Love it!

 

[Lippyp]

Very nice, I'm also partial to old buildings, my garage is 100+ years old and my house 400 years old. Looks like a lovely peaceful location, also looks like you've got plenty of airflow underneath the doors and walls!

 

[Bronson]

Can't wait to watch this one! Subscribed!

 

[OzTaylor]

Looking forward to this one. I have a similar barn with my house and planned on knocking it down. Maybe this project will change my mind.

 

[plexxarn]

Thanks for your comments !
I will use it as a workshop /garage where I can renovate and tinker with cars and do woodworking etc.

The plan from the beginning was to just make a quick pour for a concrete floor and insulate the walls in the most simple way.
Well this plan soon "expanded" slightly (First time that happens on GJ ?! ) , but more on that later

The upstairs party room with bar as it looked when we moved in:

First thing I did was to clean out all the stuff, tear down the "shelf" thing along the inner wall that can be seen in my first post. Also took down the internal unused stairs.
I hung some flourescent lights so I could work at night. I made good use of the lawn mower with its' small trailer to haul stuff.

Here are some horse drawn agricultultural tools. Pretty cool and extremley sturdy construction.
You can also see the bad condition of the concrete "foundation".

The dividing inner wall was also torn down.

Later that week I had some Moose visitors in the driveway. Be careful with that Beemer please !

 

[Sunbimmer]

Very interesting this one please keep us posted.

Welcome to GJ and BTW love the Bimmer and the pic with the moose

 

[Ron Fletcher]

What a great place!! I'd try to keep that lichen off of the roof, though. It could damage it over time and cause the roof to rust faster by holding the moisture in. .

 

[volleyball]

Doesn't look like much of a foundation. I can see the dirt for the horses but not for vehicles and projects. I would lift it up and do a proper foundation while the building is still relatively light.
It looks like clay or concrete roof tiles. And a dip in the roof. Is it suppose to dip? Or are the tiles too much weight?

 

[andrewt2]

I've got an old barn I'm working on myself, love old barns, Subscribed.

 

[Bempa]

Lovlely, it´s something special with old barn´s. Did a lot of wrenching on cars in my youth in an old barn. Brings back some memories

 

[plexxarn]

Well the building had a lot of issues. The foundation was the biggest, and the one I started to tackle first.

The back wall of the barn was very close to the ground since it is placed in a slight slope.

I started to dig this out to get the building up from the ground.

This was also necessary to free the old concrete blocks the barn poles were standing on

In the previous two pics I had bolted a piece of wood to the pole to try to lift it with jacks, but this did not work...

After some thinking and testing I came up with the following procedure that worked very well and I used it for all twelve poles.

First I bolted a sturdy piece of pole with two threaded bars to the pole.

Under this pole I put a piece of I-beam.
The pole has a cut out for the flange of the I-beam so It can not slide off.

With some concrete plates and wooden blocks under the jacks I could start pumping.
The jacks are cheap 6 ton jacks wich worked wery well for this. You actually need surprisingly little force to lift the poles.
I lifted very slowly half an inch at the time, then let it sit for about an hour befor I lifted half an inch again. I continued until it "looked right" and the roof beam was straight again. About 3 in at the worst pole. There were some nice creaking sounds in the building when doing this

The whole idea with the I-beam is that you free up the space under the pole so you can dig a hole and make a form for the new concrete block all the way up to the bottom of the pole. I lifted the pole about half an inch too high so I had some space between the top of the concrete and the bottom of the pole.
I made the new foundation blocks about 11x11"
The form has a removable paert that was used to pack the concrete and put in rebar etc. This was then screwed back on and filled all the way to the top.
I also cast in a support bracket to attach the pole to the concrete block.

After curing over night I put a sheet of bitumen paper under the pole and lowered it down on the concrete and screwed it together with the bracket.

 

[volleyball]

Does the concrete go below the frost line?

 

[plexxarn]

No. The whole building is standing on wery well drained hard sand so I dont expect any big problems with frost lifting.
I dug down to a really firm layer in the ground that is about 20in down.
The concrete blocks will get integrated in the floor slab as you will be able to see in later updates.

 

[Bib Overalls]

Ingenious!

 

[Sunbimmer]

Wow man it takes some courage to do something like this.
Very well done, I'm very curious of the rest you are going to do with your beautiful barn.
Keep the pics coming please!!

 

[Dr.AK]

Can't wait to see where this goes. The building has lots of potential to be a beautiful workshop!

 

[volleyball]

I would not integrate the floor if you don't want cracking. With your system the building will move up and down over the year. With the open board design, the building will flex with the ground. You start solidifying the structure and it will crack.

 

[plexxarn]

I dont see why this (tying the foundations for the poles into the slab) would be any different from making a slab on the ground and then building a barn on top by raising poles on the slab. I think I would have bigger problems if the poles could sink or rise independently from the slab. Anyway, it has been almost 3 years now since I made first part of the floor and it has not cracked yet.

Back to the build:
I continued making new foundations for the poles.
Some didn't look too bad, and at first I was planning on keeping them, but decided to make all new.

Here are some better detail pics in daylight of the method:

The base of the pole is just above the top of the form:

Done:

Around the outside I dug down drainage tubes:

To prevent the perforated pipe from potential clogging with mud/sand or soil I used a fibre cloth, and then gravel around the pipe

 

[borgdog]

Nice work, I'd love to save an old barn sometime.

 

[crille_hallden]

Bra jobbat, när du gjöt plattan borrade du då in armeringen i pelarna av betong och förankrade armeringen från plattan. Eller lät du bara plattan och pelarna bränna ihop med betongen?

Om du gjorde det senare kommer du troligen få sprickorna i skarven mellan pelare och platta. Där gör de ju "minst skada".

Blir mycket text om jag skall uttömma mitt resonemang...

Good work.

 

[LShee778]

I'm in for this one. Looks like it will be a great barn build. Looking forward to more updates.

 

[PLOWJEEP]

Great job with the drain tile. Keep the ground dry and you won't have any problems with frost heaving your piers or floor. Brian

 

[tommudd]

Doing a good job on it!
Following along with your build

 

[spoonsports86]

wow looks like its gonna be a great work place when you are done with it

subscribed

 

[firecracker]

All looks good to me it's a great project I'd love to do something like that, keep up the good work.

 

[domecreek]

Nice job - well thought out - appreciate the photos !

 

[xtremek]

I love it when someone saves an old building instead of tearing it down. The old buildings usually have more style than anything they're replaced it with. I'm liking this and am signing up for the ride along. Keep up the good work. Did you build the buggy?

 

[crawler07]

I have a feeling it is going to be awesome when you finally post the finished pictures! Did you use rebar in the construction of the post? will you use rebar to tie the post to the slab when its time to pour it? I have just started a new job about 3 months ago and I get to travel all around the country side Im so drawn to all the old barns out in the fields they just have such a well used look with all the gray wood and daylight shinning through, very inspirational in deed! Cant wait for the next update!

 

[plexxarn]

Thanks everyone !
Yes there will is rebar in the posts and I drilled and hammered rebar in to the posts before casting the slab.

No I didn't build the beach buggy myself. It was actually my girl friend's !
I't had been standing a few years when we met and I just fixed it up and put it through the inspection so it was street legal again. Sold it last year.
Pretty quick with that 1600 engine !
Driving around in traffic with semitrailers and buses was not as fun. You felt quite small and unprotected by only some millimeters of fibreglass

 

[wardiz]

Hi,

I saw the drainage tubes you are using. I've had draining tube around my house as well but they're different from what you have.
They look like this : http://www.hellopro.fr/images/produit-2/5/8/7/systemes-de-drainage-simodrain-356785.jpg
These are made to protect house, garage, etc etc.
It looks like you are using drainage tube used in agriculture and they usually required a strong slope to be efficient.
If you intend to prevent water getting in your garage you'd better to use PVC drainage tube. That's what I did for my house and garage.
Hope this help.

 

[plexxarn]

It is interesting to read this forum and seeing the different ways of doing things in different countries. I have never seen such a drain tube here in Sweden. It looks good though! The one I used is a typical swedish standard tube. It should have a slope of at least 1 cm per 2 meters length acc to the manufacturer.