Hello,

I am a building contractor and have quite a bit of experience with building traditional frame houses. I have a boom lift and a full complement of tools.

I have an opportunity to purchase two timber frame barns that are about 15 years old, and would plan to take them home and rebuild them. I am not concerned about time taken to build them, as I can do that on my own schedule, but I am concerned about how long it would take to take the buildings down. This is because it is about 10 hours away, and I need to know about how much time it would take with a 3 person crew. One barn is 48' x 26', the other is 24' x 18'. I have attached a few pictures for you to see what I would be getting into...

I would be able to salvage everything from the building: siding (barn board), windows, stairs, framing, roof boards (shingles would be scrapped), doors, etc. Both have a second floor.

Looking for suggestions:
1. How long would it take to take them down, piece by piece, label it, and load it into storage trailer?
2. What special tools would I require (crane)?
3. How much storage space would I need for the large building, that is, would it fit in a regular transport container?
4. If you were to buy this building, what would you pay?

Thanks for the help - I don't know if this is what you typically discuss on these forums. I just don't want to get myself into a really bad position by buying these buildings.

Adam

I was unable to open any of your photos. You need to find a photo hosting site and post them there and then post a link to that site so we can see your pictures.

Hi Adam,

I'm surprised that the barns are only 15 yrs old. Who would build for longevity only to take down after 15 years?

As far as the time to disassemble:

Have you inspected to see how it was raised? This will give you the insight as to how it will come apart. Let you know how to brace as well; should be the same as the raising going backwards.

Being 15 yrs old you should not have to much corroded nails to deal with or heads popping off for the siding. However, you might be dealing with those damn nails that get fired through a gun with adhesive on them. Dunno. Nailing patterns are good to know as well.

As far as knocking pegs out. Piece of Iron with a slightly smaller Dia works well along side a hammer with some ass (oops I mean "mass").

With a plan grid you can come up with a labeling system that will benefit taking apart and storing. Big Red Crayons work real nice.

Other than that you could use some variables such as "X" time for work that can be done with secured footing and "X(1.5)" for any work in the air be it ladders or booms.

Hope this helps some.

Here is a link to pictures of the barn. It is being taken down because they moved the business and no longer need it on the property.

Adam

http://img825.imageshack.us/g/dscn0151j.jpg/

Adam:
Thanks for posting the link to the pictures. That appears to be a kit barn from a company in CT. I have seen that type before. You'll find that a lot of the nailers between timbers are secured from the outside so that the nails don't show on the inside.

The main frame is timber framed but the roof and siding are usually standard stick built construction.

You should start with a complete set of drawings showing where everything is.
You'll need a floor plan(s), elevation views and bent drawings.
And then label the drawings and the frame with the same labeling system, before you take anything down or out. One system we used before, at a guild project, was to take round metal discs and secure them to the timbers with screws. Each disc was stamped with a numbering code number letter combination. This prevents the markings from fading or being washed off in the rain. And the labels last. Lots of parts are the same, and may not need labeling, but the main pieces should be labeled.

Once it is all labeled then you can start removing things. Striping the roof and taking off the roof boards pretty near last to save on water damage as you do the disassembly.

After the siding is off and the roofing is stripped, and the roof boards are off you'll have just the frame. Taking down the rafters and taking out the nailers shouldn't be too hard. You probably won't need a crane for that.
Once the nailers are out then the bents would be lowered (you may need a crane for that) and as mentioned pounding out the pegs to take the tenons out of the mortises. Most of those braces appear to be nailed in, so they should come down with the bents and then removed after the bents are horizontal.

I built an addition onto a barn very similar to the one you're showing. And the owner has the name of the company in CT where he got his kit from. If you'd like me to ask him the name again, so you can look up how much a new one would cost, I can do that for you. Send me a private email and we can discuss it.

Jim Rogers

The label part is pretty important - especially doing it on something that doesn't fade or decompose. And make good drawings of how things relate to each other.

And be careful with 'common' parts. The braces may all be the same - but if the peg holes were drilled by hand and draw bored - you may have trouble getting things back together. (I learned this the hard way moving old barns in PA and MD.)

This isn't an historic frame. Many of those, I'm told, are taken down without paying anything for them, because the landowner gets his property cleaned up, and the taker downer gets to cart away the frame and materials. But that's not what you have. I guess the question I would have is, how much time would it take you to take it down, as compared to how much time it would take you to build it, because you know how long it would take to build such a strucuture. Dismantling the frame will be the easy and quickest part, I'd bet, if you get a crane it will only take a few days. My gut feeling is that it's going to take almost as long to take the rest of the structure down, if you want to save everything, as it took to build it. For example, taking the windows out so that they are reusable, will likely take as much time as it took to put them in.