I've got a chance to get a bunch of 6X6 pine from a barn that will be dissassembled. So I'm wondering if this is big enough for floor joists? I'm thinking probably yes with appropriate spacing. What's typical for floor joists?

All of the tie beams are 36ft long (about 14 of them) plus the posts are probably almost 25 ft (18 of them) and some misc others. Another guy is getting the wide pine siding(darn!)

http://bp0.blogger.com/_8N51k5uX1UU/R4G-I0O-w4I/AAAAAAAAABc/2SSFnNI_qh4/s1600-h/Barn6.jpg

looks like it's in great condition... nice find

6x6 is a bit light for floor joists, I would think of 6x6 as posts/studding and rafters/bracing.

Hi,

I find it difficult to understand why anyone in their right mind would want to tear down a such a wonderful barn as this which appears to be in supperb condition and would easily lend itself to conversion to other uses.

Is it just me ?

Regards

Ken Hume

I'm with you Ken. I wish my old barn looked that nice. What a shame to be parted out like that.

Karl Hines

Absolutely a shame to tear that barn down, it looks perfect just like it is. I cant imagine those timbers being reassembled in new construction being better than the way it looks now. nonetheless Great find. Mark, why would 6x6 be light for joists seems like perfect dimension for joists ? The deflection values?

Unless the spacing is known and the span is known, as well as the intended load, 6x6 could be too small or way too big.....

For a typical first floor load a 6x6 in eastern white pine can span 11' at 24" o.c. The reason why they are rarely used this way is because a rectangular section is much more efficient in a simple load bearing beam. For example 6x6 will fail in bending over a 12' span, but a 4x8 will suffice even though its cross section is 4 sq. inches smaller! (although deflection is a little high).

But perhaps the best reason not to use 6x6's as joists is that they depart from the golden section, unlike the beauty of a 4x6.5, 5x8, or 6x10. And who can argue with fibonaci?

oh and or course, it is a really lovely barn already....

Oh, the barn condition is not perfect by any means. To save it would mean a number of repairs, though not impossible. You see the light in the corner? That corner is missing. The post is gone. Not sure what happened. about 1/3 of the floor you see is bad. Some damage on ends of some posts below and lower portion of siding. This barn is well ventilated currently. It would take a fair amount of work to repair, but as I said, could be done. It does have a very nice feel to it though the head room on the second floor needs to be increased. I'm 5'9 and someone 6 foot would some close to bumping their head on the tie beams. The first floor is dirt/mud floor where animals were once kept. Any post near the ground have some degree of damage or rot. As to their decision to take it down, well they decided that and we have no say in it. At least the materials will be reused and not wasted, unlike our very large family barn that had massive 20Xsomething 50 foot beams that sat out back and rotted after the barn was taken down. That was when I was 13. Had we only known better...
That is correct that I did not give enough information to determine if 6X6 pine were sufficient for a specific application, but I was just asking if they were commonly used in general. Of course for a specific application you'd have to calculate the load on a floor and how close you'd have to space them to acheive deflection within acceptable limits and bending stress with appropriate margin of safety(built into the loading actually).

Hi Brad,

I wonder if the owner has given some thought as to only taking down part of the barn - for example dismantling one bay and then reusing the salvaged materials from that bay to fix up the rest of the barn. That way the barn would contain all original materials and its pattern and place in the landscape would be preserved. Missing or lost bays is quite a common feature in old buildings. If this is a square rule barn then a degree of interchangeability should be possible.

I do appreciate your comments that the owner has the ultimte say but just maybe they are not currently aware of all of the options at their disposal.

It would be interesting to see more shots of this barn and then for the forum and moderators (especially R Christian) to provide some input and guidance to the huddled masses.

This cannot be the first time that this situation has been encountered,as your own personal experiences already attest and so presumeably experience based guidance is available from others (e.g. Charles Leik at http://www.thebarnjournal.org ).

Regards

Ken Hume

6x6x8's is a fine sizing on 30''-36'' centers. steve chappell's book... check it out.

p,

what species?
grade?
nominal or full size?
what design loads?

Regardless to what any book says, until the answers to Gabel's questions are known you're truly not sure.

well, refering to the original post, we are talking about white pine aren't we?? and i can assume that the white pine 80 years ago is fairly high grade lumber compaired to what we are using now. and i can also assume that the guy on the working end of the broad axe or adze is cutting to dimensional sizes not nominal.

as far as the design loads are concerned... if he is planning on parking a grand piano,or a car on the floor it is probably not adequate. however (with typical live loads) as long as the flooring material and the primary carrying members are sized properly, a 6x6x8' timber spaced as close to 30" as possible should be about right.

the only reason why i refered to steve's book is that brad probably recieved it while standing in a building at fox maple that was framed that way. steve is one person that i know of that frames floor joists this way, and his book is a viable resourse.

Ok, here are a few more pics of that barn. It's pine, but I'm not sure what species. I'm not sure I can always tell when it's old and oxidized. White pine is rather white when it's green(or very light blonde), but the old barn timbers I have are reddish/orangish in color, but I still think they are white pine. I could be wrong. The beams in this barn have a reddish/orangish color on the outside. Last night I was playing with my new 1953 Delta unisaw (new to me). It is my first table saw and I took some old ratty loolking pine 4X6 scraps that came out of an old barn. They were very dark brown on the outside and very oxidized. I sawed the sides off to see what the wood looked like inside and it had a slighly yellow look to it. At first I thought they might be SYP, but perhaps it's just age of the wood. I'm thinking that they are a white pine. What do you think?



Here are the scraps I cut:
http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL621/2555774/7502252/299921469.jpg
http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL621/2555774/7502252/299921470.jpg

Brad

I would tend to agree with the white pine assesment, based on the pictures. We see alot of that up here in WI. Although we do see yellow pine sometimes. One way to know for sure is to send a sample to the Forest Products Lab in Madison, WI. They will identify up to 5 samples a year for free.

http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/WoodID/idfact.html

I would not assume that older wood is better wood. Some of the old frames have poor quality timbers in them.

it says there 6x6 it never mentions 8' long. Where did the 8' long come in?

Again, I'm not bashing any book, I'm just stating the facts. Until you know the what species? grade? nominal or full size? what design loads? and the exact span you can't make blanket statements that it's ok. Read Paul's post and you'll see that 12' long they fail....