How To Salvage Barn Wood
Learn the basics of salvaging old barn wood for new uses such as furniture, hardwood floors, and other home and architectural elements. Brought to you by the authority on living in the country and sponsored by John Deere. http://www.progressivefarmer.com
Step 1: Meet Dan Miller:
Hi, I'm Dan Miller, Senior Editor with "Progressive Farmer" magazaine. Today, we're going to talk about how to get new value out of an old barn like this one. To help us walk through the process, I'd like to introduce Bob Przewlocki, owner of Preservation Trades of Illinois.
Step 2: Advantages:
Bob, why would you want to recover a bar like this? Well, Ben, I'll tell you. Barns are like tools. When a tool on the farm is no longer needed and it's kind of discarded, a barn is basically the same thing. It's abandoned, not utilized any further and it eventually rots down to the ground.Ben: Well for the owners there are some advantages in terms of tax liability and just insurance liability, right?Bob: That's right, we have a few liability issues here that we're dealing with. One is the the tax liability, property taxes, and of course if a building is removed, we're going to have less property taxes. And the physical liability of having the building that's dangerous to people who come to your farm and visit or just your family, you'd want to have that building down.
Step 3: Look inside the barn:
We're going to be working with two barns today, one a circa 1900's hog barn that's stick frame built, dimensional lumber; and then this 1850's dairy barn that's built post and beam style, timber frame, hand-hewn timbers. Can we take a look? Sure. Wow, this is really impressive. What do we have up here in the barn? Well this is our barn frame; these are our timbers are situated into a post and beam structure. A timber frame barn is usually constructed comprised of beams and these are these cross-sections running perpendicular to the ridge. And I'm showing you this because you have to understand how the barn is put together before you can take it apart.
Step 4: A pin knocker:
This looks like the kind of beam you're going to want to preserve. Bob, how do you get his out of here? Well we have to be careful because we have a lot of weight bearing on top of it. This is a bent post. What we have to do is start at the top, take the roof off and then work our way down, removing the smaller pieces, the queen posts up above. Then these whole sections can be just laid down and put on the deck here. and then you can take it apart. you can put a we call a pin-knocker, made out of steel, that will knock the pegs out and once the pegs are out then these pieces will come out and they'll be real loose because they're not held back by the picture any more. One of the stoutest beams in the barn and sought-after is the tie-beam and that's connects the two walls together, keeps the barn intention and makes for a real interesting architectural piece. People use them for structural in their house or for aesthetic purposes.
Step 5: Remove the sliding:
Well, Bob, we're ready to start removing some wood. Where do you go first? Well, we're going to remove the siding. Why do you want to do that? Well, by taking the siding off, it gives some natural illumination in the barn and help you see what you're doing.
Step 6: The wood market:
What's the market for barn wood? It's a pretty good market. People use it for panelling inside their houses, and making furniture and flooring. It's a good product. Now this is the tool you're going to use to take the siding off, right? That's correct. Why don't you tell me about it. It's made by our local blacksmith and it's two pieces of steel, tube steel, welded to a leach spring with a notch cut in it. OK. We're going to have some detailed pictures of this tool on our website. First we'll look at some wood that we really don't want to keep. I'm guessing this is really a problem? Yes it is. It's caused by water migration through the timber which has broken down the fibres in it, as well as an opportunity has arisen for powder post beetles to come into the wood.
Step 7: Wood prices:
This is a great beam here, it's old growth-oak, isn't it? Yes it is. That is the value in these timers. You just can get old-growth wood like this any more. This particular beam here is 8" x 14" x 22' which is approximately 200 board feet. You could net probably $5 a board for them, something like that. So you could net about $1000 for this beam. That's correct, about $1000. These pieces here are representative of what we've just seen in the loft. You'll notice they are hand-hewn. We have a cavity here which is called a mortice and this is the tenant; and these two pieces fit into each other and that's what makes up a timber frame structure. And hand-hewning, the owner would literally cut these beams with this axe, the broad axe, right? Exactly, the broad axe was used to square up the log and make a timber out of it.
Step 8: What next?
We've got a great stack of barn siding here. We even got some floor planks. What do we do next? Well the next thing we need to do is clean the wood and the best way to do that is power washing it. Tell me about these floor joists. Well, typically in a dairy barn, most of the floor joists were whitewashed with a lime wash. It can be removed if done properly and we'll show you in a minute. We've got Anthony here with us to show us the proper way how to power wash.The first piece we just spoke about was this whitewashed piece. The proper technique to remove that whitewash is to bring the wand a little closer and apply a little more direct pressure to the piece. The next piece is the timber frame shorter piece and that has mostly grime and dirt on it. An optional next step is an insecticide treatment. One product that's used in the industry is borate, sprayed on the wood and let it soak in. This basically takes care of any type of insect that would be living in the wood.
Step 9: Thanks for watching:
Well, Bob, thanks for showing us around today, we sure learned a lot, but I know you've got to get back to work, so I'll let you get going. Thanks. I really enjoyed it. Thanks a lot. Some people call this rediscovered wood; and that's what we're talking about. We're taking something old and making it new. People make bookcases out of it; they use it for flooring, they use it for architectural details.We've done something special with the wood from this yard. We're building a table; and you'll be able to see that table and the plans on ProgressiveFarmer.com under Projects You Can Do.
