We're starting work on the last big construction project before winter. And the winner is...the barn! Here's the current southern wall of the barn. This is the side that gets the most sun and rain. I replaced the middle section two years ago (there should be one more slat, but it's a long story why it's not there - OK, not so long, here goes: the barn design calls for each of the three sections to be populated with 2"x6"x12' spruce tongue and groove boards. IMO, spruce is too soft to span that length, resulting in the severe twisting evident in the picture above in the first and third sections. The middle section was just as bad, so I replaced it with 2"x6"x12' douglas fir. T&G doug fir needs to be special-ordered and when I got the load, one of the boards was too twisted to use. I cut it to relive the twist and all was well. Still, I wasn't happy with just replacing the 12' sections with doug fir. So I also had the vertical h-channels made (visible in the middle section). This summer, I put up the h-channel in the middle, effectively shortening the span to 6'. Unfortunately, I was careless in cutting the twisted 2"x6"x12', so the two pieces were not 6' each, and unusable in the current configuration. So that's why there's a board missing.)

Aside from the buckling of the remaining sections, in the winter, the rain is driven by prevailing winds against the south side. Even under ideal conditions, i.e., all three sections replaced with doug fir, there's still a gap at the top of the wall of about 4 inches. This, as far as I can tell, is by design. The boards are supposed to be slipped in at the top of the edge h-channels and dropped into place. Accordingly, there would be no way to place the last board to fill the 4" gap. We tried ripping 2"x4" boards to precisely fill the gaps, but the resulting structure was still not water-tight. The next effort (which can be seen in the photo) was to lap a 1"x6" over the gap, but this proved to be ineffective as well. The underlying spruce walls continue to buckle away from the 1"x6" and the center section (now removed) was still not water-tight. I suspect that this barn is not oriented correctly and that one of the sides with an overhanging eave should be presented to the prevailing winds.

So, the plan was to affix an overhanging awning to the frame of the south wall. The overhang would protect the walls from the rain. A good plan: simple, inexpensive. Then, we got to thinking. If we're going to put an awning on that side, it might be nice to store some stuff under the awning: maybe some hay, feed, that sort of thing. Clearly, though, if we're going to put hay or other perishables under the awning, they would need to be protected from the rain that gets driven by the southern winds.

I guess we'll have to wall in the awning, then, and make a proper room out of it. So that's what we're doing. The tractor work is done, leveling out the 10' section we decided to enclose. So that's the haps, man.
- posted by Colin @ 6:53 PM