OT - Old Barn Foundations

[Bill VA]

Looking at the old buildings on my Dad's farm and every shed, the barn and farm house - all of them are over 100 years old, still standing and everyone is built on corner stone type rocks. No foundation. Set some rocks and start building. 100 yrs later - standing.

What do you see with old barn construction in your neck of the woods with regards to the foundation?

Just curious.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[farmerwithmutt]

On our church there is one huge rock for a step about 6 ft x 5ft and 8 inches thick I asked an old guy how did they move it ? Turned out pretty easy apparently they brought a Wagon over top jacked the rock up and chained it to the bottom of the wagon and a I always thought they were really strong but apparently they were just smart

 

[fixerupper]

Here in my immediate neighborhood in Northwest Iowa it's mainly poured cement with rocks thrown in for filler for out building foundations or rock and mortar. We do have plenty of rocks but they are too hard to chisel into shapes and very few have flat faces. My house has a rock and mortar foundation and it dates to sometime in the 1890's. In my immediate area we don't have limestone so any limestone was/is shipped in. My neighborhood has much newer buildings than can be found in the eastern states. The first buildings didn't come along till the late 1800's and we don't have many trees so most of the buildings except the very old ones were build from lumber yard lumber instead of local saw mill lumber.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

Someone once told me that if the stones were set during the dark of the moon they would never settle of move. Don't know how to test that.

 

[Steve@Advance]

Not a barn, but a building where I worked, 3 story brick with a basement. This is a real brick building, not veneer, walls 18" thick! It was built in 1860, served as living quarters and offices for a steel company in Ft Worth TX, provided rail for the railroad.

The walls of the basement, everything below grade, are crudely mortared together native stone. They were then plastered over somewhat smooth, but nothing to look at. There is rough concrete poured on the floor, thinking that was an afterthought. Whatever it is, it is extremely hard, near impossible to drill or cut, never encountered any rebar.

But they must have known what they were doing, the old building is still standing straight and secure, no cracks or settling!

 

[Dave H (MI)]

I have two old foundations on my place. One is only about 25% there and looks to be some combination of stone and concrete. The other is cement block and even has part of a wall and the milk house still standing. I am thinking of rebuilding that one. The original wood barns both burned a while back and took the dairy cows with them. That was before I bought the place from the original homesteaders decedents. Lot of alcoholism in that family over the years. They seemed to have a lot of fires for one family.

 

[carpenter]

My observation is that it is mostly how much frost you get and how expansive the soil is.
I am on the MN / WI border by St. Paul, MN. Foundations here can be four feet deep and be destroyed by one winter.

I have a hundred year old barn that stopped with dairy ten years ago and now in the last ten is rapidly
heaving and being ruined. No heat in winter from cattle.

In the same area you can have no frost footings and gravel dry soil. Last forever. No expansive frost.

Weather/climate bigger factor than good building practices.

carpenter

 

[RwEny]

where i live in western new york it is said that these old germans built a great barn then they set it on 4 stones.

 

[David G]

Those are buried all over my homestead, there have been buildings here since the 1830s.

 

[bill mart]

where are you in western ny ? Bill in south wales ny

 

[PJH]

I remember reading in the Foxfire books that they set two stones under the sill because moisture would only wick to the joint between the stones. One stone, and the moisture would wick to the sill.

 

[Bill(Wis)]

Yessir. Just set some good sized rocks on the ground and start building. A lot of the old granaries around me were built that way to get them up high off the ground. They've stood the test of time. I used to hear the old time builders say to either do it that way or you'd have to go below frost level with a foundation or pillars. Which, in my area, would be around 5'. 6' would be better.

 

[ShadetreeRet]

Here in North Carolina, I have seen the remnants of buildings where "heart pine" was used instead of stone. Of course you will not find pine trees that large nowadays, but if you are familiar with pine, you know that the center does not rot.

 

[notjustair]

My farm was originally a dairy. All of the buildings are standing but the barn. The foundation is there and is what I would call "rubble rock" and mortar. The rock is big like that but has random steel in it. Now that the barn is gone and it is in the weather it is going downhill fast. Lots of heaving. I wanted to tear it out but the wife said no. I had to haul in truckloads of soil and compost so the whole thing is a raised bed with walkways and a birdbath in the center. It is kind of neat but I end up pulling weeds every time I walk by. That makes me want to get the tractor and knock it in. I believe I would be in trouble.

 

[Hoenes]

When I was a kid,I remember a crew that did an addition to our large hay barn. They dug down to the frost line with a tile spade. (8" wall) Absolutely no footing, poured the wall right in the dirt, with very little rebar. Formed everything above grade with 1x12"s. I think that the "flat rock" set-up that others have mentioned, held up just as well if not better.

 

[Billy NY]

The one on the left had a stone foundation, which is still intact, barn was taken down by heavy winds about 40 years ago. The other one was newer, been gone since about '97, concrete foundation as I recall, the slab and knee walls are still there too.

 

[Leroy]

Older part of my house has stones set like in your picture but they are smaller so more had to be used, newer part, built about 1900, justs sets on large boulders, one each corner, one in middle of each wall and one in middle of room.