Timber Framers Guild Forums General General Forum Questions barn disassembly

I wonder if someone with experience or perhaps disassembles barns for a living could give me an idea of the equipment necessary to go about such a project with efficiency. I have three people in my area that would be willing to part with an old barn on their property for free or very little money, but before taking on such projects, I need to research the extent at which I would need to invest in equipment. As of now I am thinking crane rental and operator, trailer rental, transportation of trailer, storage site for trailer, replacement of rotten timbers, hand and power tools to remove boarding, pegs, and disassemble joints, obviously some laborers to facilitate faster disassembly, in order to reduce crane fees. Oh yeah, a lot of long ladders, and a whole lot of cleanup, probably with dumpster rental and removal expense as well.. Any helplful ideas from experienced barn movers would be appreciated.

sounds like you're on the right track. Can be faster/cheaper hire an excavator to dig the unwanted part of the barn into the ground if the person who owns the barn is willing.

I would say it is the reversal of building new. Block and tackle is cheap, though more time is involved, and it comes with a learning curve. Burn pile? There is the factor of how neat one must be. Are you just looking at the frame or the add ons as well, boarding, trim, flooring and misc. other stuff? Take your time and do what need to be done.

Tim

Remember to have insurance, as required to protect you, the sellers while you are on their property, any and all workers, your vehicles, tools and equipment, including rentals.
Have a plan, keep the site organized and clean as you progress. SAFETY FIRST. The more experienced your team and how well you communicate will have very positive influence on your safety and efficiency.
I like a big all-terrain forklift w extendable boom. If barn is very tall a crane may be much better for the high-up timbers. You don't want the crane operator waiting idle while one or two guys are struggling with some ornery tight pegs. Crane time is very expensive.
I won't say good luck 'cause luck only has to do with the weather. Be smart, be organized, be safe. Nothing suceeds like success.
Steve

Beside what everybody else has already said, a very important thing is to be very wary of nails. The feet seem very prone to pick these up. Look for steel insoles or buy Vietnam jungle boots.

Hi TB and others:

Just a thought and point of view on this subject

Be sure to assess the state of the structural timbers before you even think forward to another level

If the structure has rotten parts dismantling will be a whole lot riskier undertaking, because as you remove the wood pins to insert temporary metal fasteners the joint may not like being loosened up and may fall apart or fail as you do the sequential removal further down the road

definitely carry good insurance coverage you never know where things may go as you move forward with the project.

make sure that you have an agreement in writing that covers as many controversal aspects of the removal and cleanup, also check with the local fire deptartment, and municipal offices to see what they have to say, you may need their input.

Good luck and be careful

NH

It looks like you have gotten some great advice overall, from other members, the only thing I would add is perhaps contacting somebody in person that does this for a living. Take your time, plan, and check everything twice, if you have second thoughts about something you probably shouldn’t do it. Good luck and please be safe.

Jay

Thanks for all of the advice everyone. Thinking in terms of building new ,but backwards, I just assumed most frames are being raised with a crane, so... Waccabuc, you find on the medium size barns that the crane is unnecessary?NH, what are the temporary metal fasteners, drift pins? Do you know of a source of these?Timbeal, when you say block and tackle, do you mean in conjunction with gin pole? I thought about gin pole assistance, as I read in Richard Babcock's book that he and Gramp disassembled barns with just a gin pole and the two of them.!Its a possibility but it sure seems that it would take much more time and possibly compromise safety even more. Thanks again,tb

There’s not much in the way of special tooling outside of normal kit that you need, a slide hammer set up to pull pegs (search the forum for old posts) and good demo bars are important, this is one I’ll highly recommend –

Scroll down for the graphic - http://www.mytoolstore.com/klein/64306.html

What you do invest in you’ll use again, an investment in tooling always pays dividends.

All that you thought of, but for maybe the big pile of ladders. Think renting an RT snorkel lift from the same outfit you get the telehandler that was not on your list, both provide added safety and help minimize expensive labor. Then yes, the rolloff and the list goes on…

As suggested above, check with your carrier as to your coverage on demo and dismantling.

Don’t do this because you think you’ll be saving buuka bucks - Free isn’t free, it isn’t even cheap. Unless – the frame is in exceptionally good shape, the design makes it especially easy to disassemble ( like say, you can fly the roof and the plates off as a unit and disassemble on some low cribs with less expense and risk, then strip temp bracing and lay the bents down and minimize crane time to a day ) It just happens to be near the right size and has no head room issues, the lay of the land cooperates…

The planets just rarely align, so, just so.

It is almost always cheaper to frame new. There is certainly less dirt, planning and headaches

Do do it, if something about the frame just grabs you –

Or, if you know the owner is determined to be rid of it ( I’ll never understand why folks buy historic properties when they don’t really want one ) and will part it out, or neglect it till it rots, and you can find a client and a new home for it.

Or, if you think it might be something you do again in the future...

As has been said, do think it thoroughly through, before and during, and be safe.

Best with it

Thank you Will. The last reason might be my most compelling. I feel that most of these barns were built with almost extinct craftsmanship(in regards to hand hewing and attention to detail)and they were built from truly extinct primeval forest that our only chance to witness the beauty of these ancient trees is in these timbers, with the axe mostly, coercing the trees gracefully into their next shape. Basically I would only go about this if it were my intention to do more than one of them. I feel there is a duty to preserve these barns, but I am not yet sure it is a duty intended for me. I am not sure what the snorkel lift or telehandler is? Is it the forklift or cherrypicker trucks with the basket, that they use for tree work? Did you think ladders were not really necessary? Thanks again. tb