The century-old barn is showing it’s age. This year, we began making structural repairs to the south wall.
In 2014, we made an emergency repair to a post at the northwest corner of the barn and later repaired the roof. After those repairs, we carefully inspected the entire structure to find areas needing attention. Those were prioritized, and we found that the most urgent repair was also going to be one of the biggest: the south wall of the barn. That did not come as a big surprise because most winter weather hits the southwest corner of the barn, making this corner more susceptible to water damage.
In 2016 and early 2017, we braced the structural members using posts, brackets, and cables. Then we began to uncover the south wall of the barn to determine the extent of damage to structural members.
When we uncovered the rest of the south wall, we found that rot in the main beam extended to the center of the barn. Significant deflection of that beam had occurred. This situation is complicated by the barn loft which appears to have been constructed after deflection had started.
We also found that powder post beetle damage had occurred throughout the barn.
Now that the wall is uncovered, we will be replacing main structural members and then we will clad the wall with a new board-and-batten skin. Once repairs are done, we may use a borax-based solution to inhibit future powder post beetle damage.
We ask visitors to please stay well away from the barn while repairs are underway.
