Why Are/Were Barns Painted Red?

[CharlieTR]

I have been very curious about this question since a local radio station (88.5)put in their radio ad something like "If you would like to know interesting facts like why barns are painted red and others... listen to us at..."
But I have never heard the answer.

Does anyone know why people painted their wooden barns red?

Thanks,
Charlie

 

[JoeR]

Ferrous Oxide (Rust) was cheap, and it inhibited moss and fungi from growing on the wood. I think they mixed the rust with linseed oil to create the tinted paint. If the barn was used for livestock, they usually turned white from the whitewash paint used on the interior. The lime was good at killing bacteria, and after time it would bleed through the wood to the exterior.

Joe

 

[tallyho8]

I can still remember in the 1950s, all the old (real old) houses and barns and many outbuildings on the plantations on the River Road in this area of Louisiana were painted pink. This was very old paint that had been applied many years before that. I was told that the reason for this was because the only thing they had to use was whitewash and if they wanted some color with longer lasting abilities, they mixed in cows blood which gave it the pink color. All these old buildings are gone now but much of the pink color was still there 100 years after they were painted.

 

[midlf]

Red was cheap. Around here if you were a prosperous farmer and wanted to show it you painted your barn white.

 

[DieselPower]

From what I have heard over the years from some very old farmers that were told this by their fathers and grandfathers the reason is that if you put iron scraps into a large barrel of buttermilk, lime and linseed oil that the buttermilk would be transformed into a durable red paint in one or two weeks. That this paint was so easy and so inexpensive to make explains why so many barns were red in color.

 

[RobertN]

Because the owners had Farmalls. Hence, the barns were painted Farmall Red.

The JD owners painted thiers green, but it looked funny, and they could not find thier barns amoungst thier green fields of corn, grain and other crops. They had no choice but to cede to the fact that it is just to hard to beat Farmall Red.

 

[mjarrels]

In Virginia, if it was a good year, barn always looked nicer than the house.

mark

 

[gemini5362]

Because the owners had Farmalls. Hence, the barns were painted Farmall Red.

The JD owners painted thiers green, but it looked funny, and they could not find thier barns amoungst thier green fields of corn, grain and other crops. They had no choice but to cede to the fact that it is just to hard to beat Farmall Red.

Robert when I looked at your profile I noticed it said you own a Farmall tractor. I never would have guessed that

 

[RobJ]

couple answers...

Howstuffworks "Why are barns usually painted red?"

 

[swines]

Ferrous Oxide (Rust) was cheap, and it inhibited moss and fungi from growing on the wood. I think they mixed the rust with linseed oil to create the tinted paint. If the barn was used for livestock, they usually turned white from the whitewash paint used on the interior. The lime was good at killing bacteria, and after time it would bleed through the wood to the exterior.

Joe

Red iron oxide (pigment -Fe2O3) has been made synthetically since the early to mid-19th century. Iron oxides are responsible for a range of pigments including sienna (brown), dark brown (burnt sienna), yellow (mars yellow) as well as red.

However, red pigment is not restricted to synthetic iron oxide - cadmium red (cadmium selenide) is another widely used red pigment. While your story is quaint, it is certainly NOT accurate as "ferrous oxide" is iron oxide II or FeO and is BLACK in color.