O/T What's happening to the old barns

Some people still take care of their barns. This one started it's life before the Civil War as a single floor barn, no bank. Around 1910 the family before ours got a hankering to have a bank runing to a second floor, so they jacked the original barn 10 feet in the air and framed in below it. Still has the wooden calf pens and milk parlor.

I agree that the popularity of the round bale and front end loader has meant the death of many barns.

I've bought a couple of books on how to straighten old barns, which doesn't look too bad. But the big job will be fixing the foundation..

Last year Ohio did some special celebration where they made an old barn calender and painted the end wall of alot of barns. Bicentennial I think ?

Here's a picture of my barn. I had a contractor tell me $4000 for him to put steel on the end and that was if I supplied the materials, I said too much and he said he wasn't going to hang out in a bucket at 40 feet up for nothing, so I enlisted the help of a brother-inlaw and did it myself. As far as barns having too low of celings for storage, I have a neighbor that used an endloader and lifted his barn roof up one side at a time and removed the barn floor and set the roof back down on the walls, got all kinds of room for storage now. I presently milk cows but am thinking of switching to beef and will probably do the same thing to my barn.

We have a lot of slate roof with the year built written in slate on the roof, timber framed ones here, have lost a lot too, they are from a bygone era, and a big money pit, I hate to see them in disrepair, each has it's own history, nothing wrong with being in awe of these great buildings representing a remarkable period in our agricultural history, I could stop by every one and still not get enough.

That said, economically, best thing you can do it seems is maintain a roof, the tin ones and the slate ones have stood the weather here, but when the sills and floors get wet, the repairs can get costly and difficult, probably why so many have been lost. There are grants in NY, saw an article, but this is recent, not sure of the details.

The other thing is, the purpose for which they were built is hard to adapt to the needs of today, so they are really obsolete, like so many historical buildings, but nothing is more pleasing to my eyes than a well kept timber framed barn with a slate roof with the year written in red slate, the craftmanship and materials that went into them is long gone today.

• barn

The main barn on the family property overlooks the valley and is a landmark for miles around. It survived a hurricane in 1982 which shifted it 12" south on the east end of its foundation, but didn't take a nail or a board from its ash-tenoned frame.

Unless I replace the north sills, though, the barn is doomed. That's 90' of 12X12" timber to muscle into place, and at least 2000 square feet of plank to replace rotted floors in the mows.

The roof's interlocking tin, still in fine condition after a hundred years or so. The sheeting isn't bad, but the sills and the flooring are a real problem.

There must be a more efficient way to store lumber and tractors.

And you can't justify spending money of something you don't use.

Gary

Thanks So sad though.

And it's awfully expensive to get a bad barn torn down and hauled away . My neighbors barn got blown over in a downburst straightline wind that hit close to 80 mph through here 7 or 8 years ago , big barn , was supposed to be the biggest in the county . It's still in the same spot as it was the day after that storm because they want close to $5,000 to smash it and haul it away and the fire department won't let him burn it . So what do you do ? He burns a little here and there and some of it is disappearing but not very fast . ...Randy