Once the building is up and weather tight and we have a couple warm days I hope to power wash the whole floor, fill a hairline crack in the old floor section and epoxy the floor before bringing tractors in.
One really needs smell-o-vision for chicken poop laden shavings to share that strong wiff of ammonia. Really test your lungs with a ripe batch in July.
We watched a few videos on a deep litter system. The guy “Carolina Coops” uses industrial hemp imported from France about a foot thick and claims you only have to replace it once a year. If it starts to smell he says to cover it with another thin layer of hemp. About 1-2”. We change the Pine shavings about every 3-4 weeks. Thin layer of Diatomaceous Earth over the subfloor before applying the new shavings.
You ain’t chittin’ there. I spent part of a summer vacation picking eggs. I had one floor with tens of thousands of hens and the chit was so deep we wore hip waders and had to bend over all day because it had been so long since it was cleaned out. At every break and the end of the day we all gathered together to make sure everyone got out okay. I remember several times that we had to rescue someone that got into a wet hole up to the armpits. Yeah that was fun. No freaking masks either I never needed a rescue but only because I managed to get myself out. You learn where the wet spots are pretty quick. Or at least most of us did The only job I had that was worse was in a chicken processing plant. That’s a whole other story. Thanks for your indulgence
We had some barns on concrete slabs and some raised with one inch pine board floors with one inch of concrete on top of them to protect the boards and to make clean outs evert 12 weeks easier. A hose down and then a spray with some kind of disinfectant. Local farmer(s) would come shovel the barns out into stake body trucks for their fields for free - just not in July. They were too busy harvesting . That would sit in a pile beneath/next to the barn doors and compost and man oh man did that make some fantastic compost. Broilers - not egg farming.
simple and effective. Nice that you were able to get decent clean pallet. Nice that you let her go at her speed. A good teaching dad!
Drew a few quick sketches. This will be what it will look like from the side and front All the gt's should fit with enough room to walk around them and service them The basic layout of the inside looking from the 2 main OH doors. The implement shelf/mezzanine is something I really wanted. If I start counting plows, blowers, decks, cabs, etc., I have a lot of implements, that are heavy (150-300 lbs each) and take up a lot of space. Right now most of them are crammed into the barn loft. It will be nice to get the most used ones in here and free up some space in the loft for my woodshop. They will be easy to take down with the Kioti and forks this way, as they will all be on pallets.
Im not sure how I will support the implement shelf yet. I may hang it off the roof rafters if they are strong enough. I don't want any posts in the way resting on the floor.
I don't want to derail the conversation here because I'm highly interested in following it.. But I just found these pallets for free (would be amazing for a pallet shed) that I cannot make my own because 1) no truck/trailer to get and 2) no approval from wife and 3) no space to keep them link here to craigslist
Much better progress today. Ended up getting most of the walls up, the headers for the three doors, and all the rafters except the end 2. Those I'll do after I extend the walls up past, then I'll mark the wall angles to be cut under the rafter. There will be a 2x plate connecting the top of the angled walls and the rafters. Big thanks to my daughter for helping me with the 2x10x24 kd rafters. Those suckers were heavy. I have enough stock to do 2x10 facias on both ends. Then I'll do a 2x4 along the top side to give it a stepped box appearance along the entire perimeter. The purlins will be 2x4's as I located some. The rafters ended up being 30" O.C. I had enough length on the rafters to give nice big overhangs on each end. About 20". Due to the ground level difference I couldn't really use the Kioti to help. I'm pushing hard to get the roof on before it gets really cold and snowy. Then I can relax a bit and focus on the interior items like running the electric outlets, lights, implement shelf, workbench, etc. Here's some pics for your enjoyment!!! Til' next time....
Those rafters mustve cost a pretty penny! Great job putting those up with just you and her. Helped build an addition in North Grafton with my contractor friend and we used 22' 2x10's for the rafters. Some heavy SOB's. I was the peak guy so had to grab the end as they came up. Top of a salt box style house.
I also have the materials I need for the implement shelf. 3 sheets of 5/8 zip board and a bunch of 4’ 2x10’s I’ll rip in half lengthways.
Roof day was always an adventure. We built hundreds of houses and I remember on multiple occasions putting up 28’-30’ Doug Fir 2x12 rafters 12” O.C. On a 60-70’ long house x2 sides, it sucked. I was the peak guy a lot, but I also got stuck lifting them up to the peak guy a lot as often his feet were on staging 12’ off the floor, and most of the guys we hired over the years couldn’t physically lift the end of a 28’ 2x12 up to him. Most new houses I see now use trusses, which we also did a lot of, but for sure we used rafters and ceiling ties more often.