Tree smashes tractor shed

Had a 60' tree go down and take out about a third of my pole barn. Five of the trusses are broken and the roof and end tin bent up, but no damage to tractors inside. Even though I built the building 30 years ago, it held up pretty well considering the tree guys estimated the weight of the tree trunk alone to be 5000#. Now comes the hard part, finding someone to fix it. I've had two contractors look at it and both say its not worth fixing. Both tried to sell me on a new, bigger building. I got a little insurance money but not near enough to build new, and I really hate borrowing money. It seems to me one could simply push the roof back up and fix the trusses with some 2 bys and plywood, maybe replace the worst sheets and add a few extra screws here and there. I have no neighbors to please with how it looks and so long as it keeps the snow and most of the rain off the tractors I'm satisfied. So I guess I'll just fix it myself. Anyone here have any experience with repairing pole barn trusses?

A few years back, I had a tree put 10 skylight holes in a roof at one rental. One branch broke the truss and made a hole in ceiling drywall. I cut out a large enough section of drywall. Used a floor jack and some 2x4 to jack the broken truss back in place. Scabbed 2x4 to the broken section, Which wasn't the board holding the roof up, used screws and problem solve.

I had about 10 trees damaged by the wind. After insurance, I paid out of pocket $6k to have trees removed that weren't on a building. 5 roofs were damaged that year. Next year I spent $9k to remove all tree that could fall on any building. Now I don't have to worry about the wind putting trees on a building.

Do you have any Amish out by you?
They seem to be the best at that kind of stuff.
G.

Photo this time...

Yes, we had a 3rd + of our old 80x125 barn collapse from snow. I listened to alternative ideas and this and that about the repair or using the part still standing.

This barn is old, the posts are not the best now, but with all the stalls and related wood, I'm not sure if the insurance claim would get a new building, but would have gone a long ways towards it.

We demolished the fallen part of the roof back to good trusses, beefed up the frame a bit, new posts in that section, then set a dozen or so common 50' trusses, installed a whole bunch of perlins then the tin. With some extra hired help it was under 15k if I recall.

We had 4' on center trusses, I will never work with that spacing again period!

I won't ever entertain a thought of doing this work the way we had to do it in the winter again either. Miserable work all of it when bitter cold outside.

Truss repair, I know a little about it, from the days of working for a lumber yard with a truss plant. I have repaired in-tact trusses, and or reinforced same.

You would have to post some photos so we could see what you have. 2 contractors walking away means they don't want to do repair work is all. That does not mean it cannot be done, but you had better strongly consider the existing ones and their condition. This is dangerous work at minimum and you need to determine what parts of each truss is compromised, even what you do not see... hint, demo the damaged ones, repair the structure they bear on and set new trusses of the same type and spacing.

Few shots of our repair job:

Sorry to hear of the damage. If in your opinion it is worth fixing go for it. I would remove all the tin from the damaged trusses and any other tin that is damaged. If the trusses are broken on both sides of the ridge, I would probably replace them. If not there is no real problem fixing them. Make sure that you use splice boards on both sides of broken chords if you do not replace them. Otherwise you could be introducing twisting loads on the truss. Make sure the top chord is straight and inline with the existing ones. Make sure the bottom chord is also inline. Make sure you brace the trusses from one to another at least as good as the other trusses are. Using plywood to hold the trusses together is the way they did it in the old days. When I built trusses for my house addition, I also glued the plywood to the 2 x 4's. A string line should be used. Consider renting a scissors lift manlift to get yourself up to a comfortable working level.
As for getting help, you might ask around to see if someone in the neighborhood does some moonlighting at this kind of job. It should not take a lot of experience to put back together as you have the rest of the building to look at, to compare to.

The people who I got my pole barn off were from Michigan. They put trusses on 2 ft centers. They said that's the way they did it for snow load. In 1978 we got enough snow to collapse pole barns and flat roofs. geo.

Glad you could get it repaired.

I'd maybe consider that repairing the trusses won't support the snow loads in your area. I know that if I was in that line of work I'd be real careful of trying to repair something like that because of potential liability issues. A waiver from you saying that you accept responsibility in some states isn't worth the paper it's written on. So don't count on a contractor to take your word that you won't sue.

good luck

Rick

Thanks all for the advice. I agree the liability these days probably scares off anyone from a repair job. Pretty soon you won't be able to get anything fixed unless you do it yourself. Worse part about the whole deal is I have to clean the shed out to fix it! Probably all the junk in there has become structural support.

It might be better to have a set (to replace the damaged units) of trusses built. Yes, they can be repaired with your method, but it would mean replacing the damaged areas as stated. If you choose this path, I recommend trying to make the top chord in 1 piece. If not possible then gusset on both side with 3/4" plywood (not too many nails - that can ruin the structural strength of the 2x. HTH

From your picture it looks like the tree fell into the end of the building across the trusses? I would not bother trying to patch broken trusses or to straighten bent sheet metal, just replace them. After you get the damage cleared away, take a good look at the remaining structure. Are most of the remaining walls, posts and roof straight and square or are they bent, twisted and racked?

Where are you at in iowa? I'm in sw wisc if not far I might put you in contact with an Amish crew

Doug Our local Amish guys just finished repairing the roof on a big building next door to us. did a big Job quickly, tore off the tin and replaced wood underneath that needed replacing. Took them 4 1/2 days with 3 guys and 2 kids. We are in Madison county. Good luck with your project.

The trusses in this barn were never properly braced as I recall. There were however a lot of perlins, and we did both, braced it per the details on the truss drawing, and installed perlins every 19" if I recall my spacer length. I made up spacers to set these to align with existing ones.

Surprisingly, the 2nd winter after this was completed, the intact section survived a close call. It had a sag in it and needed work. I did reinforce those trusses, made up plywood splice plates for the joints at the webs and the chords. The metal splice plates were failing. We had snowfall in the winter of '10-'11 that was heavy, that roof wanted to collapse and it was sounding like it would. We cleared it in time, and I did have to shore up a post that was failing.

4'centers on trusses are a real pain when trying to work with the gap and its a hole that you will easily fall through. Every perlin was a struggle to set, full thickness actual rough cut lumber, likely green and froze = heavy!

There is a lot of work in repairs like this, same with a new building, but we were able to build it back so it was whole again, that was late '09 and at some point this barn will need work again, as it does not have PT posts and they are in the ground. Its not my place, I just did the work for my father, he never listens to reason, went with some local species that the sawmill had, actual, and its built with nominal, so it did not fit in between the skirt beams the trusses set on. I had to haul that hemlock, green to a guys house 40 miles away to rip them down on 2 sides, was laid up in bed the day before with a back problem. Sometimes life really makes you wonder why a person even bothers with things such as this and it seems the contractors that walked from this posters job, trying to push a new building may be smarter than we think LOL !!!

I helped build trusses once we used plywood plates, and nails. Way before cordless anything. Use glue and clamps along with screws.

It really sounds like your insurance company did not come through.

You get what you pay for...

just tonite a 16' branch broke off the Pecan tree in my back yard. Sunny, still day & I hear 'pop' & crash as it came down on the backyard chain link fence. Didn't do any damage as the branches caught all the weight astraddle the fence. Wifey set a land speed record from our deck into the kitchen, & she has Parkinson's disease. Never underestimate the power of adrenaline! Noticed last winter that part of the tree had a weak place where a branch had broken off. It landed where I had been mowing a few days ago. Ti-ming is everything. Will burn good this winter anyway.