Trusses, trusses and more trusses....
When we were deciding upon building a barn there was two real options:
1) build another timber frame structure that would look really cool but take another year or two of our collective lives or;
2) build the barn as a pole barn and throw some pressure treated 6x6 timbers in the ground and attach pre-made trusses.
We went for door number 2. Since bigger barns seem better on paper we went with a 36x46 ft structure making the trusses 40 ft long (36 ft + 2 ft over hang on each end). Several months ago the trusses were delivered and the driver forgot to read the instructions which was no semi trucks. We live down a 1/4 mile winding drive that snakes around a pond etc. Over Christmas we had 3 UPS trucks needing to be pulled out by the tractor. So you may see what is coming. I get a call from Stephanie in the early afternoon. The driver tried to make it around the pond and almost became a permanent water feature. It was about 10 PM by the time the second wrecker (Big John) was able to pull the truck out and down the drive backwards. Needless to say, he dropped the trusses far from the building site.
To get them to the site, all 24 of them, we took the axle from the sawmill and ganged up 5 trusses to make one long trailer. After multiple trips we had all of them there. I understand what house movers go through.
Next to get the trusses up I built a boom extension on the front of the front end loader. It was basically a 16ft 2x10 attached to a pallet along with some cables, 2x4's and a 2x6 for stability. This contraption was mounted on the loader forks and we were good to go.
As you can see in the pictures we were able to get the trusses up pretty high without flipping the tractor. The first truss nearly came loose but after we learned the importance of tying the straps we were okay, although the pallet was falling apart by the end.
The best part was getting the trusses about 20 ft in the air and driving them into place. You gotta love home built rigging.
1) build another timber frame structure that would look really cool but take another year or two of our collective lives or;
2) build the barn as a pole barn and throw some pressure treated 6x6 timbers in the ground and attach pre-made trusses.
We went for door number 2. Since bigger barns seem better on paper we went with a 36x46 ft structure making the trusses 40 ft long (36 ft + 2 ft over hang on each end). Several months ago the trusses were delivered and the driver forgot to read the instructions which was no semi trucks. We live down a 1/4 mile winding drive that snakes around a pond etc. Over Christmas we had 3 UPS trucks needing to be pulled out by the tractor. So you may see what is coming. I get a call from Stephanie in the early afternoon. The driver tried to make it around the pond and almost became a permanent water feature. It was about 10 PM by the time the second wrecker (Big John) was able to pull the truck out and down the drive backwards. Needless to say, he dropped the trusses far from the building site.
To get them to the site, all 24 of them, we took the axle from the sawmill and ganged up 5 trusses to make one long trailer. After multiple trips we had all of them there. I understand what house movers go through.
Next to get the trusses up I built a boom extension on the front of the front end loader. It was basically a 16ft 2x10 attached to a pallet along with some cables, 2x4's and a 2x6 for stability. This contraption was mounted on the loader forks and we were good to go.
As you can see in the pictures we were able to get the trusses up pretty high without flipping the tractor. The first truss nearly came loose but after we learned the importance of tying the straps we were okay, although the pallet was falling apart by the end.
The best part was getting the trusses about 20 ft in the air and driving them into place. You gotta love home built rigging.
posted by joel and stephanie at 8:23 PM
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