Our friend, Erik Nelson, is famous for the Carp Caviar and Wreck and Salvage video projects. He has also recently bought land in Vermont where he starts a new life with his wife and kids. In a smart move, he plans to build with as much reused material as he can which makes financial and environmental sense. We live in such a country of abundance that it’s so easy to use what is just lying around as long as you are willing to put the time into it.
In this video, Nelson shows the old barn that he plans to tear down for lumber. Ryanne and I are planning to drive out there to help this April. Best plan is to just hitch a tractor to the foundation beams and pull it down. As Nelson would say, “Get ‘er done.”
I was just up there this morning with my brother. We were trying to figure out our plan of attack. This barn is a monster.
Hi there,
This is the old guy from SD again! It is too bad that so much of the structure is so far gone; that would have made a wonderful home/office/shop. However, how many of the bents (main support posts) and surrounding structure are still intact and reasonably straight? If there are two or three good arches left, I would use those in any new building. To do that; however, you would have to abandon the “pull the supports out” method of demolition.
What I would do is to start on the side of the building that is near ground level
and take it apart piece by piece. If you do it this way, it is easier for less skilled labor and you will have a place to put lumber as you process it. (Very important if you have any really nice pieces that you want to be in “display” locations.)
At least you wont have to worry about the lumber being green! You also have plenty of stone for foundation work also!
Please also invest in some good equipment:
a good hard hat
work boots with a steel shank underneath
(They are much less expensive than tetanus shots after the fact.)
several good claw hammers of various sizes
leather gloves (cloth will not work, experience talking here)
a five gallon shop vac
face masks to deal with all of the dust
a good planer to process wood quickly
a hand-held metal detector to find the invisible nails that will kill your planer blades
not necessary, but nice to have:
a small generator
a small dorm size refrigerator to keep refreshing liquids handy
a radio for when you just can’t take the sound of the wind any more
I hope that some of this will be useful to you. Please keep the videos coming.
Drew Meyer
@geo
what? not sure what images you might be referring to…
http://wreckandsalvage.com/