Many farmers establish new b , but some are lucky enough to buy or inherit holding with old barn in place . Their challenge becomes how to keep these old barn from falling down . Fortunately for this group , John Porter knows his way around old barn . Growing up , Porter spent more time in his menage ’s 170 - class - old barn than he did inside the firm .
The Porter family owned a 400 - cow dairy farm in Lebanon , New Hampshire , and Porter spent his portion of metre tending the cows and maintaining the construction . He withdraw one summertime , abode from college , when he worked with his father and a local carpenter repair one of the barn , piloting wheelbarrows full of pissed concrete to rain buckets a floor . The concrete hand truck could n’t get close enough to pour the base directly , so he had to carry the full weight of that floor one load at a time .
In 2006 , Porter used his noesis to start a refer business called Farm Planning Services , and today , he is the extension prof / dairy specialist emeritus at the University of New Hampshire . His specific task ? Helping New England farmers keep their previous barns support .
Of course , one specialiser ca n’t facilitate every b possessor , so Porter and his confrere , Francis Gilman , an extension Agriculture Department engineer emeritus , produced a book calledPreservingOld Barns : forestall the loss of a valuable resource(2001 ) . But he does n’t take credit for the idea :
“ In 1999 , my boss was on a committee that wanted a handbook on barn upkeep , ” Porter allege . “ He lift his hand and tell : ‘ John Porter will write it . ’ ” The book has definitely met a need , trade thousands of written matter since its debut with a Modern version planned for later this yr . In addition to barn conservation , the account book also cover the history of barn in New England and has a lengthy list of resourcefulness for barn owners .
Porter guide out that barn proprietor can get additional aid in states such as New Hampshire , where individual nonprofits such as the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance offer matching grants so owners of old b can hire local contractors to get programme for their next tone . Each contractor researches the barn ’s story , assesses overhaul options and develops a precedence list of needed work . The NHPA grant is for $ 400 , and the possessor has to check with $ 100 . Together , that ’s enough for the initial assessment . The NHPA ’s most late campaign is to elevate enough money to avail 52 barn in 52 weeks .
F Delventhal/Flickr
What to Look For
In his public presentation on saving old barns , John Porter , the extension prof / dairy specialist emeritus at the University of New Hampshire , offers some helpful observations .
New or Used?
The old barn Porter has see fall behind to neglect was from the late 1700s . Some owners get overwhelmed and tear down a barn to avoid the taxes and financial obligation . Frequently , widows are pull up stakes to struggle with the demands of an old barn . Most barn Porter see are more than a C old , having been build during a construction boom in the 1850s .
Some owners build fresh , more easily maintained rod barn for their animals and set up their old barns to apply for repositing or farm stands . Without a moneymaking ( or money - relieve ) design , it can be hard to vindicate the disbursal of renovating an old barn . Porter enunciate owners who take on the arduous oeuvre , though , get a gravid mother wit of accomplishment and are glad they renovated rather than deplumate down to build a newfangled barn .
“ They prize the historical lineament of the b , stables , corncribs , sugarhouses and the smother landscape painting , ” they write , pointing out that it often makes salutary economic sense to keep old barn . “ They [ barns ] provide valuable repositing and workspace . They normally can be adapt to new uses at a much grim cost than build a successor . … Preserving a barn ’s historic character can go manus in deal with the economical and efficient consumption of a farm construction . ”
F Delventhal/Flickr
When see fix a b , it ’s most authoritative for an possessor to look after the top and bottom of the structure and what ’s growing around it .
“ A b will survive indefinitely with a sound ceiling and a decent foundation , ” Porter says . “ The expectant culprit in the precipitation of neglected barn is the overgrown vegetation that ’s allow to grow up next to a barn . ”
The swaying branches of trees can bang up a roof and make leaks . Shrubbery , meanwhile , can contain wet and constitutional debris against the wooden sills — the beams that rest on the rock foundation — and cause them to waste . A shitty sill causes settle , which get the ceiling to suffer integrity and create damaging leaks . Bob Gaffney / Flickr
Bob Gaffney/Flickr
Barn Preservation Steps
Before you come out uphold your barn , you need to determine your objective in the task .
“ Do you need to keep an old barn from falling down , to create a functional use for an abandoned edifice or to reestablish the structure authentically ? ” writes Porter in his book . “ It is well to remember that conservation entails retaining the structural wholeness of a building , while restoration implies the habit of authentic materials and techniques to bring back the building to its condition at the point in the past , often the day it was built . ”
Here ’s a summary of stairs an proprietor of an old b should consider , according to Porter .
Shutterstock
The penultimate step is to , of course , take some photos of your barn - again structure to post on social media . Then you could do the best part : employ a string band , call your friends , cook a pig bed , cast a party and lionise . You ’ve just save an old b . Shutterstock
Building Materials
get a line more about fixing up at old barn with these resourcefulness .
Publications
Organizations
This story originally appeared in the September / October 2017 payoff ofHobby Farms .
