Re-erecting an old barn as a garage

[Feltwell]

Sounds only worth doing if it's seriously, seriously cheap to me. Otherwise, I'd look at a new oak framed building.

Alternatively, if money is tight, I did see one kit where the open entrance to the "barn" was done in oak and the rest of timbers were softwood - which you can't see until you're inside.

 

[Feltwell]

Some people have a strange notion of 'carefully'.

Why do I suspect the careful process was:-

- owner tears old barn down as quickly as possible
- starts burning bits to get rid of them
- mate comes round and says " 'Ere, you could flog that on't'Ebay y'know....."

 

[Penners]

Sounds only worth doing if it's seriously, seriously cheap to me.

I completely agree.

 

[88v8]

£500 is seriously cheap, even adding another £400 to get it moved, and my farmer neighbour was happy to store it for me.
Alas, the owner found the correct dimensions, just over 14' wide externally, so no good for a double garage. Really, 15' was pushing it, even allowing for the fact that our cars are only 5' wide.
Adding that extra foot would be soooo much work, all those scarf joints, and it's not as if I'd have been scarfing straight square timbers.... not going to happen.
Shame. I could build a new timber frame in softwood and clad it in oak, but it wouldn't have that mad wonkiness that comes from a treen frame.

Ivor

 

[Penners]

a treen frame.

Here's someone who was framed by the Treens:

 

[Feltwell]

wouldn't have that mad wonkiness .

There's a few on here that have got that. It might be catching you know, watch out.

 

[88v8]

It's started me thinking that I could create a wonky new building. A variety of reclaimed cladding, some wavy old oak beams, some of those warped new beams that woodyards can't sell because they're bent. I reckon I could make something that looks old. I already bought two pair of garage & coach-house doors, and a decommissioned 18c ledge & brace oak door for the side, I can make the windows. Old bricks laid in lime for a dwarf wall. The whole thing can be drunk and out of square, the roof can be wavy, I won't have to worry about the BC zealots.
Definitely started me thinking. :wink:

Ivor

 

[Feltwell]

Whilst I like the idea, I stuggle with the reality of building anything "wonky". It's the engineering training that's done it I reckon - I just can't stop myself from measuring accurately, making sure things are in square and/or level, etc etc. If they're out it really bugs me! Repairing something that is already out is fine, it's building something new I'd struggle with.

I'll have to get Mrs F to buy me a course at the local green wood centre for my 40th - see if they can cure me!

£500 for the beams does sound good. £400 for transport sounds steep - how far is that? I hired a full-size artic, complete with a Moffat Mounty (an all-terrain forklift truck that it carries on the back end of the trailer) to move a full trailer load of bricks about 50 miles not long ago for £320. I would have thought if you're moving heavy beams then providing it's not a massive quantity a 17 tonne rigid truck with a hiab (lorry mounted crane) would do and should be cheaper & more readily available than my artic.

In fact I used a similar vehicle to get my roof tiles - my friendly roofing merchants collected them from 40 miles away for me and dropped them off here for £100 cash to the driver. The tiles themselves were bought off Ebay.

 

[88v8]

It was about 130 miles one way.
The lorry was probably ott, it was a matter of getting a ballpark quickly.

It's difficult working on things that are crooked. I'm making a new attic hatch in oak where there never was one; the original joists are hand-cut, neither straight nor level, nor parallel. The ceiling plaster is like a frozen tsunami. Every piece has to be hand-fitted, sliding bevel gauge not set-square, and the architrave (if that's the correct term with a roof hatch) will have to be sculpted out behind to accomodate the plaster waves. Should I bevel the architrave joints or cut them straight across so they show end-grain... how were roof hatches finished in the 1600s... I could have done all this ten times over by now in my 1920s house...

One would have to be careful building with wonky timber. The weight of a tiled roof... any members which are in compression need to be a bit stronger if they're already bent... the principal rafters and their trusses can be as bent as one likes, but the bowed common rafters need to be in contact with the sagging purlins and the bowed ridge beam/pole. The windows can be rhomboids if they're not to open. Not quite so easy with the doors, I want them to shut cleanly so I'm not freezing my k****ers off in the winter. The gutters can sag but must ultimately do their job. And it will have 90 degree corners on plan which is cheating slightly.

Ivor