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Restoration of a 150 year old Barn.

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clockmanFRA:
Restoration of a 150 year old Barn.

If okay Mods, ? I will post this here, it might interest some folks.

This Oak framed barn on our Old small Farm here in Normandy France is to be restored at last.




 Ten years ago I put some metal work inside to support the roof as the North brick wall that supports the Oak frame and ‘torche'  (Mud & straw) filled walls, was falling over. The locals remarked, “knock it down and put a modern one up”.
 
Restoration will leave the interior to Passive House standards on the insulation.

The 10m x 6m, 7m high, (33ft x 20ft x 23ft) building will stay a barn, with 2 full size barn doors especially made lightweight structure with very good insulation, and these doors will have a normal front door installed in them for pedestrian access.

 I will reopen 2 windows on the north side wall, and install a service door at the back with a room for  a WC and a small kitchen room etc, and this barn can then be used as a Lecture Theatre, but I can still get my old tractor inside  :).

The metal roof on the south side of the barn will be removed and that area will become a small court yard with two small animal stables suitable for a dozen sheep or so, and a freezer room building.

Concept.
I will build a building within a building, this way the new does not put any loading/strain on the old and I can keep the new dry and insulated.
First to get the old structure stabilised, here we are digging out the old rubble footings of the wall and gone sufficiently deep to find hard stable sub soil conditions. Saved  the bricks for re-laying the wall.




As you can see there are already some serious brick support pillars that are concrete filled to save the rest of the leaning wall.

Next we will dig out around the inside of the building a 3oomm, 12 inch deep trench that is about 24 inches, 600mm wide, then we will lay a plastic membrane and then a steel reinforced concrete Raft Foundation with 12cubic meters of concrete. 12 is about the best minimum I can use with the ground conditions.

Materials are sourced locally, sand from up the road,' Bayuex', bricks from the brickworks kilns at ‘Lisuex', thermal blocks from a little farther away but re-constituted blown cinderash , insulation from a little further away, re-constituted old glass bottles into fibre. Wood oak etc local. The old roof slates are now weathered down to paper thin, so new will be re-constituted slate that is pressure forced into new slates with a fibre mix, again done in this Country.

Photo shows what we have done on all our other buildings around our old Farm, this one is in the 90ft long Medieval Old barn, the 2 storey Bunk Gite with Raft foundation, Thermal blocks etc etc.
 

Bruce S:
Clockman;
As someone who has helped our Family's farm "down home" which is a mere 197mi (~320Km) rebuild a centuries old building, I welcome posts of this beauty!!
Best of luck!!
PS>>> Those bricks looks just like they came from Missouri!
Bruce S
In Moderator Mode, we would say " The diary section is open to almost anything" post away  ;D

clockmanFRA:
Here You are Bruce S, just for you ..... a photo of our just up the road Brick works.




Me and my old Toyota collecting another pallet of 600 hand made's.



Its been here centuries, family run generation after generation, has its own clay pits and mini railway for bringing the clay.

Slightly distracted at present with Insulating and panelling the walls in the Main Salon in the House, and now painting.



 

Bruce S:
Nice!! Very Nice!
The blue tones nearly match our formal dining room that just got upgraded to (3) 120Vac 40W LED bulbs rated at 850 lumens each ( this of course to ward off cabin fever through winter) shining through a re-purposed (meaning we found during bulk pickup day) Alabaster lamp.
I'll post a pick of our house's back wall, those bricks of yours match!!
Just goes to show that somethings are hard to improve on.
Cheers!!

David HK:
Any prospect of a photograph of the railway engine at the brick works?

Dave

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