Hayloft is Crashing Down! Help!

[Artisan]

If you can, take a few more pictures, specifically the rim (the doubled up edge)
and all posts. ALSO, the floor above, take pictures of the floor sheathing and how
it was nailed, or was it nailed? ALSO, at the caved area take a close up of an end
of a joist and a hanger. How many nails and what kind of nails were used at each end?
Are the posts on cement or just in dirt? If you can change the camera
settings to large format too.

Are those 2x12's on 16" centers?

It almost looks like the rim bowed out.

 

[Mike_Kanzer]

WOW! The hayloft is grossly overloaded. You are talking about in excess of twenty tons up there. I think you need to remove the load as soon as possible. Temporary bracing of the collapsed section from underneath would need to be done first before the hay can be removed. I have a 36 x 60ft pole barn with 24 support posts on cement footers with engineered "I" beam joists spanning the 12ft center ailse and was told by the builder I could put 20 tons of hay in the loft distributed over the whole floor area.
I think this exceeded the weight limit of the structure to a significant degree.

 

[yelbike]

ooops!! looks like too much weight at first glance. Take some hay out asap if it can be done safely!!:thumbsup:

 

[LD1]

If you can, take a few more pictures, specifically the rim (the doubled up edge)
and all posts. ALSO, the floor above, take pictures of the floor sheathing and how
it was nailed, or was it nailed? ALSO, at the caved area take a close up of an end
of a joist and a hanger. How many nails and what kind of nails were used at each end?
Are the posts on cement or just in dirt? If you can change the camera
settings to large format too.

Are those 2x12's on 16" centers?

It almost looks like the rim bowed out.

I agree we need some better pictures (IF you can do so safely) to determine a cause.

But I am going to venture a guess that it was faulty construction technique that anchored the joist hangers.

Cause IF they are indeed 2x12's on 16" centers AND only spanning 12', that floor should easily handle 100psf. Which means that the 45,000# of bales would only need spread out over 450 sq ft. (or @ 12' wide loft, it would need evenly distrubuted over about 38ft of length.

So how long is the loft?? and what is the rough length of the loft that the bales are taking up??

It does look like something may have moved or shifted (post or header board) to allow the joists to come loose. cause the 2x12 floor is more than up to handling the hay.

An a side note, I dont care for that style of construction anyway. (relying on joist hangers alone).

A better method IMO would have been to nail a header OUTSIDE of the posts and attach joist hangers to THAT, and then another header board on the INSIDE of the post and UNDERNEATH the posts to support them there as WELL AS the joist hangers. Also, the header boards should be BOLTED to the posts with thru-bolts and not just nailed.

 

[LD1]

I know it is hard to see in this picture, and it isnt exactally the same, but this is what I am talking about. (setting the joists on a ledger/header board)

I know I didnt use joist hangers either, but this floor dont need to hold up and significant weight either. But notice there is a header the joist is setting on, AS WELL AS one that it is nailed to on the end (where you would use a joist hanger).

If this loft were built that way, there is no doubt in my mind (provided the posts are up to par) that it would hold the hay just fine.

PS: was this even designed as a "hayloft"? Did she have permission to store hay up there? Was it used to store hay before?

 

[tlbuser]

I'd rather put the hay on pallets, at floor level, than put them up in the loft, and then have to climb up and take them down.

I put a staircase in the barn, hay is dropped down to the feeders from above.

 

[GPintheMitten]

The barn is about 36x72. The hay is stacked to the peak across 48'x12'. She was going to fill the other 24' x 12' area as well, but that's not going to happen now.

We are going to build some temporary support under the sagging area and take the hay out. Then we will get someone in to fix it.

The doublers are not bolted to the posts, just nailed as far as I can tell. The plywood floor is nailed to the joists. It appears that the doublers are bowing down in the middle of some spans and splayed out which probably pulled the joist hangers away from the joists.

 

[sailfast]

I bet the hangers are screwed instead of nailed

Sent from my MB525 using TractorByNet

 

[GPintheMitten]

More pics.
Hay has been stored there before, but maybe not stacked as high and dense as this. The owner knows that she has been putting hay there. I don't know if specific permission was given but he didn't tell her to stop doing that.

I agree that I wouldn't build it that way either.

 

[LD1]

I would say that it is a combination of improper technique, and insufficent header board.

I dont have time to play with numbers right now, but at first glance, spanning 12', there should probabally be 4 2x12's for the headers for that kind of load, and PROPERLY fastened.

It also appears that the joist hangers arent the right size. If those are indeed 2x12's, those look like 2x8 hangers, probaballt tor short of a nail (they are supposed to criss-cross and tie into the header), and not that it matters and didnt cause the failure, but it dont look like the little tangs of the hanger were hammered into the header.

12' x 48' is 576 sq ft. and if your estimate @ 60#/bale is accurate, that is under 80PSF. The joists should carry that just fine. But as you are finding out, everything else ALSO has to be adequite to carry the load. If the header or posts goes, you could have the strongest floor in the world but it wont matter.