Mini Pole Barn Construction

We lost our tractor "barn" last winter to the giant Valentine day snow storm and we have talked about putting up something to replace it. We finally decided on a Pole Barn structure put up in the same place as the original which was at the top of the driveway.

I made up a semiplan in Google Sketchup to give us some idea of what we were shooting for. The building is 15 feet wide and 24 1/2 feet long. I got the truss design, more or less, from a agricultural website. The design was actually for a 30 foot wide building and I basically reduced the dimensions by half while retaining the same size lumber. I also increased the roof pitch and we are using rough cut lumber we milled ourselves. So actually the trusses aren't anything like the ones I found on line.

We started the project (after milling the lumber) by building the trusses in the garage. It took us a couple of weeks to get them built since we were sort of milling lumber as we needed it. The first one took all day to figure out and construct. By the time we got a couple built we were laying them out and putting them together in a matter of an hour or so. There are a total of 8 trusses to be set 3 1/2 feet apart. I figured this would make the building stronger than the 4 feet which the downloaded plan called for. We also are spacing the posts closer together than the plan. They called for 12 foot spans. We are using 7 foot for the end spans and 10 1/2 feet for the middle.

Two weeks ago I drove the tractor which has been in Waterville over to Hyde Park. It wasn't a bad trip, took a bit over 2 hours, but I picked the coldest day we had for quite awhile. I was pretty chilled by the time I got here. I figured I needed the larger tractor to do a number of the jobs necessary to get the barn built.

It turned out I started with an unplanned segment of the project. There is a turn around for the town vehicles right beside where the barn is going. I needed to regrade and shape the turn around so I could fit the building in the space we had. I realized to make the area more attractive I needed to build a stone retaining wall. The finding of the stones, and the building of the wall occupied most of a week but I think it will make things more attractive in the long run.

The next step was to plant the posts. We were hoping to use our three point auger to drill the holes but found that the ground was just too rocky. We needed the posts to be places rather exactly and the auger was bouncing all over the place breaking shear bolts and just generally a pain in the rear. We quickly gave up on it and just dug the holes with the backhoe on the smaller tractor. It took us a whole day to get the first couple of posts in and then another two days to finish up with the rest. The recommendation around here is to get the posts at least 5 feet into the ground since the frost level is reportedly about 4 feet. There were a couple where we hit ledge but most got down the recommended depth. The posts were real bears to manuever. We are using 16 foot 6 x 6's which are pretty much impossible for Caroline and I to pick up and do anything with. This was one of the reasons I brought the Waterville tractor over. We attached the forks and the boom which I made last year for building the barn and picked up the posts and dropped them into the holes. We braced them in every direction we could as well as to each other.

The next step was putting up the 2 x 10's to support the trusses and to add bracing to allow the building to be more stable. That went well also though it took another several days to get it all done. Caroline acted as laborer and carpenter. She was in charge of the miter saw while I spent time up on the ladders measuring and nailing. We glued a lot of the pieces together to make everything more stable. I expect it is overkill but we keep thinking about that 4 foot snowfall last winter with the 5o mph gusts that went with it. We are also looking at this project as a practice run for a larger version over in Waterville to store lumber so we wanted to treat it like a larger building.

We were hoping to have help but, as is often the case, when it was time to get the trusses up there was no one around to help so Caroline and I took it upon ourselves to start the process. We figured we would use the boom again to raise the trusses up above the wall. Luckily it is tall enough to do that by about a foot. Caroline controlled the truss by straps connected to either end while I pick up the truss with the boom. We found we can pretty much set it down where we want it and have the tractor hold it up while we nail it in place. The trickest part, as it was with the Waterville barn, is to get the lifting strap off the truss and boom once the truss has been set. It means climbing up a ladder with the boom leaning on the truss to make sure it is secure. Not the most fun but at least it is not as high with this barn.

Our neighbor Scott showed up just as we were finishing the first one and helped us with the second. It definitely is much easier with a person in each side of the truss. Also having Scott gave us another person who was good with a hammer. Unfortunately we ran out of daylight after the second truss and had to stop. Today it rained all day so we are hoping to get the remaining 6 trusses set tomorrow.

Digging and Moving Stone

Things have been going relatively slow as far as projects are concerned. There has been more real estate activity than we normally have which is keeping us from getting much done except the maintance stuff like grass mowing.
I did start digging last week for the electric line extension. The rough measurement is 480 feet from the neighbor's transclosure to where our "vault" will be. We'll then run the electric back down the hill to the shed and the barn. We are going this route with the thought that the house will be up the hill in the future and we'll need to extend the line up that way so why not now. So far I've spent about 5 hours digging and about 5 hours moving logs, rocks, and brush, out of the way to allow me to dig. With a bit of luck I expect another 10-12 hours of digging should get us pretty much done. There are a number of trees which will have to come down at some point in the process. We'll then have to put in conduit and such. I'm hoping to have things ready to go by the middle of July weather and real estate permitting.

We also had some stone delivered, some of which we will use for the base of the vault for the power but the rest we are spreading around areas that need some building up and drainage. So far we've put some behind the barn where we hope to extend the roof out for lumber storage. Still have to spread it around and add a bit more.

The other big project is to spend a day taking care of our burn pile. It has gotten totally out of control and takes up a huge bunch of field at this point. Hopefully we can get that done before the end of June. Of course we'll just start putting together a new one as we continue to clean up the property.

Goat Fence Finished -- Well almost

Well we finally finished the Goat fence in the lower field except for one gate which we have to make. We have the little buggers down there at this point and hopefully it will hold them in. Otherwise we might have to shoot them (just kidding, well sort of).

As you can see from the pictures it goes on for awhile and in all honesty we are pretty proud. It took a bunch of work but we used mostly trees which were already down, or the upper parts of trees we are using for the "cabin" so it was pretty much found wood. Certainly not all the milling came out super wonderful but the rails look nice and the whole structure feels pretty solid. We have room at the top for another rail if we see reason for it but fully expect they will stay in at the current height.

As I'm writing this seven goats just went by. Obviously our fence isn't perfect. Fortunately they got out through the temporary closure for the gate so hopefully once we have the gate up we'll be golden.

We also think the gate makes the place look a bit classier. though of course we aren't prejudiced.

Goat fence and Log Pile

We started working on the goat fence the other day. Haven't gotten very far but we think it'll keep the little buggers in and also look reasonable. We found that we aren't very good at digging the post holes where they should be based on the length of our rails. We are going to change our routine and measure out a bit shorter than what the rails are and then cut the rails to fit. Hopefully that will work better. We figure we have about 600 feet of fencing to do so we'll be at it for awhile. Of course it always takes longer when you have to mill the posts and boards to make the fence. Having the tractor with post hole digger is making the job much easier though we do shear off bolts from time to time when we hit a big rock. Our post holes vary a bit in length so as you can imagine we need to cut off the tops of the posts to make them all match. I suspect this fence won't slow down the deer much. We also figure a moose will amble through and take out the whole thing just about when we get it done.

We've also started milling a few of the timbers for the "shed" we are hoping to put up in Waterville this summer. To the left you can see some of the logs we'll be working at milling. Some of the larger ones are going to have to wait until we get the backhoe on the tractor to act as a counterweight. We got them down to the pile by skidding them down the driveway while there was still some snow. Yesterday I brought down one that was about the same size and the tractor was not happy. It picked it up but was very tippy. the shed plan we have requires six 8 x 8 beams that are 16 feet long in addition to a bunch of 12 footers. I think we have the logs for the 16 footers but will need lots of 12 and 10 footers. I suspect more trees will need to volunteer to be a building. We have a couple of more reasonable sized pines which lost their tops this winter. We'll hopefully get them down soon.

A New Season Begins -- We hope

Well Winter is hopefully done as we enter May tomorrow. Winter got off to a slow start but we got hit with a 3 foot snow storm in the middle of February and it seemed like we were plowing every day after that. Our last snow was about two weeks ago. We've talked many times about getting the snow tires off the vehicles but it hasn't seemed sensible to do so. We didn't get as much accomplished over in Waterville as we had hoped though we got a number of pine trees down as the winter was ending. I spent a lot of the time over there moving snow. April was going to be milling month but with the weather and some real estate clients it didn't seem to happen. I'm hoping to get the pine we took down milled in the next little while before it gets the infamous blue stain and we can't use it for building projects where we care about the looks.

We've been around and around on what is important to get done this year. We've decided that the original spot for the "cabin" just won't work. It's too wet on the approach though the actual location of the cabin would be pretty. We are lucky we didn't get the septic system in last fall or we would probably think we had to go ahead with it. Also our neighbor on that side did a lot of logging this winter so the area across the property line isn't all the attractive, and probably won't be for the next several years.

We are thinking a "shed" this year to practice our timber framing. The plans I have are for a 12' x 16' building so we will probably go with those. We also are looking at it going across the driveway from the wildlife pond to make it easier to access the site. We are also leaning towards using the stone in the area for the foundation.

The barn made it through the winter without a lot of problems. We made an effort to get the snow off after the big snow. As you can see in the picture to the left I was almost up to the shed roof which is about 8 feet off the ground at that point. The plastic we put up survived which surprised us quite a bit. It certainly made things better inside the barn. We are hoping to get the rest of the front shed roof extension done in the next little while and plan on trying to get a good part of the barn sided. I'd particularly like to do the gable ends from the top down to about 10 feet so that we would get less rain and snow blowing into the structure. Obviously it's really high up at the top so I'm not sure how that will work out.

The first big project we have planned is to get fence up in the lower field for the goats. Last summer you might recall they were good for awhile but then decided it was more fun out side their designated enclosure. We are working on milling posts and rails to build a fence. I'm thinking we'll be needing a hundred or so post so it's taking a little while. The goats got a bit stir crazy during the winter but we started taking them for walks as time went on. They got good at going along with us. We'd take them over to visit the neighbors. They actually seemed to enjoy seeing the donkeys over at Sam and Dusty's. The walks have now stopped since they become unruly when they can get to food.

We recently extended the floor for the sawmill which makes working in the barn much nicer. It isn't the whole floor but we now have 12 feet in width which gives us a lot of space to work without being on Stone. We were commenting the other day that we were pleasantly surprised to see that we didn't have a problem with water accumulating on the floor of the barn. I guess that perimeter drain we put in was worthwhile. The other thing which has made us happy is to see the sprouting of some of the grass we planted last fall around the barn. Hopefully it will keep the brambles down as well as make the place look nicer.

I've been working on some possible models for the "main" house in Waterville. More on those in a future posting.

It's a New Year -- 2006 Projects Linger On

Well yesterday began the New Year. We got a lot accomplished last year but the projects we started are still not finished. We learned a lot about building, milling, using the tractor and ourselves.

Currently we are concentrating on extending the barn out a bit further towards the driveway. We are in the process of framing up the area as you can see by the picture to the left. We have 1/2 of the front framed. Have ordered metal roof for the whole thing and hope to get the half we have ready roofed this coming weekend. The reason to expand the area under the roof is to allow for firewood storage as well as hopefully supply a spot for sawdust and slab storage. We might also be able to put the front loader implements undecover by dropping under the roof from the sone wall side.

We have some cedar boards which we milled to side the small area above the new roof. The roof will give us another 6 feet of storage along the whole side of the building once it is done.

A couple of weeks ago we put plastic on the rear of the building to slow down the wind and snow. It seems to be holding up well thus far. Doesn't keep all the moisture out of the building but does seem to help. I suspect that until we close in the Gable ends a bit more the rain and snow will find their way all the way inside.

In the picture at the left you might be able to make out a couple of utility posts which we buried behind the building. We hope to extend the roof out for three of the bays for lumber storage. Those posts are 12 feet off the back of the building so we should be able to put most of the lumber we mill under cover.

We still have the wood floor to extend inside the building as well as thinking about milling boards for siding. We also are hoping to start cutting timbers for the cabin which will be the big project for 2007. On the right side of the top picture of this post you can see one of the logs we brought down today. There is a similiar size log on the mill. They are both from a pine whose top broke off back in the spring. We haven't tried getting the butt log out of the woods yet. Still waiting for the ground to freeze.

We also took some of the maple which we milled last winter and made a little toolbox for Caroline's staining supplies. The maple looks great though a jointer and planer would help in getting the boards flatter. The toolbox came out pretty well for a one+ day project. We used the electric planer which Tom has loaned me to get the maple in somewhat reasonable shape. The handle is made out of some cherry which we milled this summer.

The cherry is part of a "twisted" cherry branch which broke off over last winter. It had been a really neat feature of the Waterville property. Don't know how it happened but the branch had snaked it's way through a pine tree down to the ground and then back up into the sky. It was a really big branch. The rest of the tree is still standing and appears to be doing well. It was too neat a piece of wood to just let rot, or use as firewood so we took it down by the mill. I milled up a couple of small pieces earlier this summer but the big piece took some working up to. I finally got it milled several weeks ago. Came out pretty neat.

Caroline is hoping to make some large benches out of it. The slabs are 2 1/2 inches thick and about 12 inches wide. They are about 10 feet long. We have a total of four of them to work with. They are currently down in the generator shed drying out a bit. Hopefully by the end of the winter we can try working with them a bit. Not sure what the final products will be. A bench made out of one of these would be neat but not sure where we would put it.