Does anyone have an idea of the mean lifespan of your garden-variety wooden barn? (Bizarre question, I realize.)
Sometimes I’ll spot a dilapidated barn while driving in the countryside, with nary a farm house around it. This gets me wondering about its history. Are we talking maybe 75 years? 150 perhaps? More?
Admittedly, many factors–principally environmental–regulate lifespan. I’m guessing construction materials and techniques are uniform, though maintenance varied more.
I don’t have any links, and as you said environmental factors take a large part in the lifespan of a barn. Another major factor is the type of wood used (hardwood will last longer than softwoods), along with the craftsmanship of the barn. Since there really wasn’t so much as a standard practice used for every barn you see they things matter greatly. However, I would wager to guess that most of the barns you see standing could last over a 100 years still standing if they are left alone (not exposed to an insect problem, or hit by a tornado).
Some farmers may have put up barns that weren’t near farmhouses. For example, if a farmer aquired a second parcel of land that wasn’t close to his house, he might put up a barn there for storage. Just a WAG . . .
There are a lot of houses around here that have been moved from their original locations. Doesn’t happen much anymore but my grandfather helped move a half-dozen houses in the 60s. That would explain some of the orphan barns, I suppose.
Around here, though, I can tick off four or five abandoned farms within five miles of me - the barns always collapse before the houses do. It’s said this happens because cows, through their sweat and exhalations, keep the wood somewhat moist, and their body heat keeps the building warmer in winter. Without the heat and moisture the wood dries out and the barn dies quickly.
One barn just down the road from here took maybe 20 years to die; a few miles away from that it took 30 or so. Another barn stopped holding livestock a mere 10 years ago and it’s not going to take long for that place to fall down, but it was in rough shape to begin with.
The Ag Journal, an agriculture newspaper/magazine, used to give an award called the “Barnagain Award”. It went to barns over a half century old that were still being used by people in agriculture but not necessarily as a barn. Some of the nominations were over 200 years old.
Many barns stand alone because the farmer didn’t need the old house anymore (lack of plumbing, old electrical,ect…)
but the barn was still useful for farming. They tear down the old house and farm the land, but continue to use the barns. Sometimes the house burned down but the barn didn’t,
perhaps the owners died or saw it as a chance to relocate to another location.
My farm is over 200 years old (we still have the original deed.)
It looks like our barn has been rebuilt at some point. The foundation is original though.
I’d say it’s over 100 years old. There’s no nail in the whole thing.
The thing about a barn is this:
It will continue to stand basically indefineitely as long as two conditions are met.
The roof is maintained. What kills barns, or any building is water leaking onto and rotting the flooring and support beams.
The standing seam is maintained. What’s this? Well, a barn is a large open building, and the weight of the roof, as well as snow and such pushes ourtwards at the top of the walls. Let it expand too far and the whole thing will fall.
Our seem is maintained by a few strategically placed hight tension cables. Every couple of years we hire this crazy Mennonite guy to monkey around on the cables and adjust the tensions to keep the seam in true.
I’ve been saddened to see barns disappearing from the rural South in recent years. The old ones are falling down, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a new one going up. At least not one of the classic wooden barns.
In the South, barns were mostly used to store baled hay and as shelter for mules and horses. (Because of the mild winters, they were rarely used to shelter cattle here.) Of course, few farmers keep mules and horses any more, and most people roll their hay these days instead of baling it, so hay lofts are no longer needed. As a result, barns are vanishing from the rural landscape.
I assume barns are still in general use up North, to shelter animals in the winter. I know I saw a lot of barns in Michigan when I was up that way.
Are new barns still being built up North (outside Amish and Mennonite communities, that is)?
I’m pretty pleased with what’s going on up here. The Mennonites still put up barns, and they still do it in a day. I’ve seen it, and it’s truly something to behold.
Hershey is nearby and they use a lot of milk and most of the dairy barns you see are in very good shape, some are quite old.
I notice along the road the owners of old barns are realizing they posess real value, so you see a lot of restorations.
I’ve seen some beautiful circle barns, and the “Star barn” near Harrisburg is being redone as we speak.
Finally a nifty trend has been that people are restoring and remodelling barns as unique and cool residences. I’ve seen a couple of these, and done properly it’s magnificent.
The key seems to be to preserve the rough wood and brickwork, and simply seal it. The open floor plan gets maintained as kitchen/living room/den with some clever partitioning, and a second floor gets added up among the beams as sleeping lofts with wrought iron spiral staircases.
The bottom level of the barn, becomes a really nice garage, workspace/basement.
The whole aura of the quaint antique barn is preserved, the barn is restored, and it becomes a unique residence.
Well the old part of our dairy barn was originally built in 1887 and I would say that the heifer barn is about the same age. Some of the neighboring barns were about the same time. I remember one being 1878 and several other barns on the same road were almost certainly built by the same man or group simply due to the design and size (ie. they have almost identical beam layouts including built in ladders).
I have local maps covering the years 1868 and 1903 that include buildings and it is obvious that many of the larger barns were built between these times. The 1868 tended to show many smaller farms with smaller buildings then a move towards consolidation prior to 1903 with many larger barns being built in the interim years. Most of the post and beam barns that we are talking about were built in this interim.
Hardly surprising though really considering post Civil War explosion of rail giving farmers a place to send their products, prior to this you had canals as well but they were geographically limited. You no longer have to just produce and sell locally, now you can produce more than the local market requires and ship it to the city. Also the cities are no longer limited to local produce, they can ship in from further regions.
There still seem to be many post and beams left around simply because they have other uses, as others have allready mentioned. It is getting harder to use them with modern farming methods though. Ours was nearly doubled when my grandfather added a Hip Roof barn on one end in the ‘60’s (doesn’t hold nearly as much hay as the ol’ Post and Beam). The older post and beams usually don’t have mangers wide enough to accomodate round bales or skid-steers easily. Most mid size and virtually all large size farms have built newer buildings. Sometimes ripping down or selling (they can be disassembled and moved comparatively easily) other times keeping them for storage. I’ve seen some locals turn them into storage facilities for rent. Hopefully they will continue to be usefull for other reasons than farming since pole barn construction (they’re not that different when you compare the two building methods) seems to have replaced the post and beam for most modern farmers.