New wood floor for old barn

[quicksandfarmer]

Thanks for the picture. Removing that concrete doesn't look like fun but once the new floor is in it will be worth it. I haven't seen a suspension barn, but that is a very neat/functional concept with having the whole basement area open. It must be an impressive bean that supports the hay loft and first floor, just think of the weight that could potentially be in there. Any chance of replacing the metal support rods? You are doing a nice job keeping up a piece of history. An old barn (about 100 years old) was just torn down about a 1/4 mile from me. The property sold and the new owners didn't want the barn. I was disappointed coming home from work that day and seeing it being ripped down, fewer and fewer of these old barns exist and especially one like yours. Well done.

I thought long and hard about restoring the iron rods. The problem is they failed a long time ago. They had already failed when the concrete was poured, which I estimate was 50+ years ago. When they failed a motley collection of wooden posts were put in the basement to hold things up, so the upper beams have not held any more than the roof for 50+ years. I worried that returning a substantial load to that beam would after so long would destabilize the whole building.

I think one reason that suspension barns are rare is that they tend to fail here. I've been in one other, and it had failed in the exact same way and had been repaired the way I'm doing mine. From an architectural standpoint I don't know why they considered it valuable to have the basement clearspan but not the main floor. Right now I have a large clear area on the main floor, with chains holding up half of the hayloft, and it's pretty cool.

 

[joecoin]

Remove the floor but don't replace it. Put a concrete floor in the basement. You'll have a nice high ceiling, you can even play basketball!

 

[PILOON]

How about using that local lumber and have T & G grooves added? the extra procedure should not be all that costly.
In fact if you had a good solid table saw you could do the T & G yourself.
Once installed you could rent a belt type floor sander for a smother surface if you decided it was needed.

 

[s219]

Last summer, most evenings after the kids went to bed I would go out to the barn, put on the Red Sox game on the radio, and spend a few hours breaking up concrete (usually while the Sox lost.) As I took up that floor I developed a real feeling of kinship for the man who put it in. I pictured him toiling away by himself -- friends don't let friends do projects that way. Probably in the semi-darkness from the look of the work. With only the vaguest idea of a plan. Not quite right in the head either if I had to judge. I think we'd have a lot to talk about.

As a long suffering Red Sox fan, I understand completely.

 

[wmonroe]

I thought long and hard about restoring the iron rods. The problem is they failed a long time ago. They had already failed when the concrete was poured, which I estimate was 50+ years ago. When they failed a motley collection of wooden posts were put in the basement to hold things up, so the upper beams have not held any more than the roof for 50+ years. I worried that returning a substantial load to that beam would after so long would destabilize the whole building. I think one reason that suspension barns are rare is that they tend to fail here. I've been in one other, and it had failed in the exact same way and had been repaired the way I'm doing mine. From an architectural standpoint I don't know why they considered it valuable to have the basement clearspan but not the main floor. Right now I have a large clear area on the main floor, with chains holding up half of the hayloft, and it's pretty cool.

Good point on not restoring a load to the beam that hadn't held a load for such a long time, hadn't thought of that.

 

[wmonroe]

How about using that local lumber and have T & G grooves added? the extra procedure should not be all that costly. In fact if you had a good solid table saw you could do the T & G yourself. Once installed you could rent a belt type floor sander for a smother surface if you decided it was needed.

Good idea.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

As a long suffering Red Sox fan, I understand completely.

Listening to the Red Sox night after night made breaking concrete with hand tools seem bearable by comparison.

 

[hslogger]

I haven't seen any tongue and groove barn floors in the pacific northwest. Alleys in OLD dairy and small farm barns were all rough sawn, side by side. If you lay em up and put them in dry, generally they will stay pretty tight. If you put them in green, they will shrink and you will have a gap that wouldn't be acceptable for a shop floor. Barns were made to breathe. Barns with good ground clearance and good roofs last forever. When one of those gets neglected, they begin to fall apart.
Shops were made to be tight.

 

[nctacoma]

I do a lot of work on old barns and timber frames. I would also recommend going with either the 2x6 tongue and groove or the rough sawn and adding t&g. This will help stiffen up the floor with larger spans. Either way a 21" span with 2x material is fine. T&G will just add a bit of stiffness. Wouldn't be too hard to add the t&g yourself or have a mill do this and also plane one side or as someone else said, rent a floor sander after it is done and knock it flatter and smoother.