Simple farm structures. How to....

[Stanb999]

With things going as they are getting materials for building will soon be out of reach for many of us. I'd like to start this thread to give tips on how and what we built ourselves with minimal materials from around the farm.

[Stanb999]

Well One of the first things I built from mostly farm materials was a 8X16 Wood shed. It will hold about 9 cords.

I used spruce trees, Nails, Chain saw.
The only store bought material was the tin roofing and nails.

First clear the area where the wood shed is going.
Make a small Foundation from stone to keep the beams off the ground. You really only need the stone a few inches high and located at the base of the up right supports.

Cut and scrape logs. I used a machete to debark. You will need to cut trees in the 4-8" size. If they are bigger the work is much harder. Due to the nature of the structure you need not season them.

For the base use 2 logs at 16' and two logs at 8'
For the up rights. 5 logs 8' long and 5 logs 10' long.
For the headers you will need two good strait 16' logs that don't taper too much.
For the roof beams you will need 9 10' long logs close to the same diameter as possible.

Goto go. More tomorrow.

[dreadstalker]

soddies , cob houses , straw homes and rammed earth all use a minimum of off-site materials.


Most of them have a greater mass and maintain a ambient temperature much better then the modern stick built homes.

[Stanb999]

soddies , cob houses , straw homes and rammed earth all use a minimum of off-site materials.


Most of them have a greater mass and maintain a ambient temperature much better then the modern stick built homes.

Please describe how?

[dreadstalker]

How to make them? or how they maintain a higher ambient temperature?

Soddies are made of sod. laid out in courses for the walls.

Rammed earth is , just as the name implies, earth packed tyight into forms for the walls. Forms are removed .

Cob houses are a mixture of dirt, clay , straw and manure. Formed into roughly loaf shaped batches and worked into shape.

Straw houses are indeed built of straw bales.

the R-value on these buildings is in the 30 and 40 range.
With walls up to 2' thick it maintains a more even temp.

[Stanb999]

To continue...
Now to start with the building.

Place longer of the base beams down on the rock. Roll and flip them till the stay in place on their own. Now take the chainsaw and cut a notch in the ends for the other base logs. Now attcah them with several nails. Next take the saw and carve flat spots for your up rights. The "studs" should be located at the corners and 2 feet in then in the middle for a total of 5 per long side. The front of the shed has 10' studs and the back has 8' studs. The short sides gets none. Place the studs and toe nail. Next level and brace the corner posts with 3' short pieces cut to fit. Two on each corner post will do. Now hoist the headers in the front and back. Attach with large spike/nails. 1 in each post. Hang rafters at the edge and 1 ft. in on both sides then at 2' centers for the rest. Attach by toe nailing.

Now it's time to make a few boards.
Cut and strip small 8' X 5" or so logs You will need 6 logs.

Take and cut them down the middle with the saw. They don't need to be perfect.

Now attach these boards to the shead. You want to have five for the short sides 2' apart(just space them) They hold the wood up. Then on the long sides put the same spacing but end the boards at the second post in. So you now have a two foot wall on each end of the long walls.

Go buy tin roofing. You want the 24" stuff thats 10' long. Attach at the half way point for the first piece. This will give a one foot over hang all the way around.

For nails use 20 penny for toe nailing and regular nailing. Use 60 penny to attach all main beams.

When loading the shed start with the short ends first. They will be braced by the boards you attached. Next run from side to side. This will lock the whole pile together and it wont fall over.

Later today I will post some picks of our shed and how it's built.

[Freeholder]

There's an on-going discussion of primitive building methods on Frontier Freedom. The Alaskan Indians (Interior, Athabaskan) dug their houses into the ground several feet, then earth-bermed and covered the roof with thick sod. They usually used birch bark where we would use sheet plastic and/or rolls of tar-paper for waterproofing. Their houses would be a lot warmer and more practical in that climate than any modern construction I've seen up there.

Kathleen

[BeWell]

Thanks, stanb999 - I'm going to read this to DH. We have lots of small trees that need to come down, and we always need more outbuildings.

[chicom]

I built this simple wood shed from local timber using the butt and pass method. The only store bought material was the tar paper. The tin was salvaged from old mining cabins that collapsed. I guesstimate that it will hold eight cords of split wood.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa284/chicom70/IMG_0171.jpg

[Chuck]

Nice looking shed did you rive the shingles?

[chicom]

Nice looking shed did you rive the shingles?

Yup, came from a piece of Cedar that had recently fell in a high wind.

[Freeholder]

Very nice shed, Chicom. Well done, to build it with so little purchased input!

Kathleen

[dreadstalker]

Good job.
Nice woodshed you have there. Especialy for the price.

[Stanb999]

Cheap structure #2

A small animal Shed.

I used small logs for the frame as in the wood shed. But with a different twist.
I obtained about 3000 B.F. of rough cut hard wood board from a local pallet mill. These were left out in the elements for a year and had started to grow mushrooms. The selling price was 60 bucks. So I scarfed them up right away. The first thing I did was take them home and sticker the piles to get them to dry. Then I sprayed them with a bleach and water mixture. This worked very well. In fact most of the boards were in great shape with no blemishes. I used these for a kinda lapped siding. It worked very well. When I get finished with the shed I plan on putting a spray waterproofer. But for now it has a tarp roof and raw wood sides.

The big suggestion I have for anyone contemplating using hardwood boards. (Maple,cherry,ash,poplar) is use a power nailer. Getting the nails through those hard boards can be a real challenge. I will post pics of the wood shed and Animal shed.

Total cost so far less than 40 dollars. But I still gotta get some tin so that will bring the cost to about 150 bucks or so.

[Stanb999]

Here are some pics.

This is the structure of the bottom of the wood shed, You can see the rock "foundation" and the cross bracing.

http://images39.fotki.com/v1288/photos/8/830687/3112314/004-vi.jpg (http://public.fotki.com/stanb888/farm_pics/004.html)


Here is a photo for the goat shed. This shows how I over lapped the siding boards.

http://images108.fotki.com/v1298/photos/8/830687/3112314/009-vi.jpg (http://public.fotki.com/stanb888/farm_pics/009.html)


This shows the ceiling joists for the structure.

http://images108.fotki.com/v1298/photos/8/830687/3112314/010-vi.jpg (http://public.fotki.com/stanb888/farm_pics/010.html)




I have a few other photos of these structures on the photo site. Just click one of the pictures it will take you there.