Friday, September 30, 2005

It's all down


It's been a long summer. After nearly 20 working visits to the barn site, and a few trips to Raccoon Creek to prepare for and unload wood from the trucks, it is all down to the ground.

On Tuesday we arrived at the site with a crew of two experienced in taking down barns and an enormous crane that could be raised to about 90 feet and its operator.

The crane was able to lift small and large sections from any part of the barn, all from the same spot. (Remember, the barn was 60 by 54 feet.) It had a "basket" that could lift two men to anywhere on the barn and provided ample space to work without getting in each others' way.

It was interesting to see a few of the crane's safety features. For example, if the hook was raised too high, before jamming in the top pulley, it lifted a weight, which took tension off a switch, which shut off the winch that lifted the hook. Also, if the weight on the hook and the angle of the crane together threatened to tilt the truck, the boom would stop until more cable was played out and it was lifted higher to reduce the angular force, or until some weight was removed.

The process was to lift us to a spot, attach a strong strap to one or more barn parts, remove the pins and nails, loosen the part as best we could, then set the basket down to let us out, attach the strap to the crane's hook, and lift the piece or section off the barn and place it on the ground where we could disassemble it.

Sometimes the lift was a single piece, like one of the stringers attaching two posts together longways at the top of the barn.

Other lifts were two to eight posts and beams that were tightly connected and more easily came down as one unit. There might even be a few knee braces included in the unit.



One mistake we made was not being careful to lay the units down the "right way," meaning with the correct side up to allow us to knock pins out from the top as the sections lay on the ground. We set many of the units down the "wrong way" and lost lots of time later taking them apart.

For each connection, we first tried to pound out the pin and "wiggle" the smaller part's tenon out of the mortise in the larger part. This wiggling wasn't as simple as it sounds. Many of the connections were still very tight after 140 years. We use a long 4X4 to pry and push the beam left and right as someone else inserted a wrecking bar, rock, wedge or board into the crack between the parts. At each change of direction, the crack opened up more and the a larger wedge could be inserted until the beam finally disconnected. It took two people to lift a typical beam, so this wiggling process took some time. Sometimes we were able to pound the pieces apart, but not often.

If knocking out the pin proved impossible, because it was too tight, had bent or broken inside the connection over the years, or the connection was wrong side up, we used a drill to core the pin holding the tenon in the mortise before using the "wiggle method" described above to separate the parts. Often the drill left what can best be described as a wooden straw inside the hole because the drill was just a tiny bit smaller than the pin or because the course of the drill missed part of the pin on the inside. In these cases we had to drill again (and sometimes again) to remove all the pin.

The last resort was to saw off the tenon. We tried to reserve this approach for beams with tenons that had already rotted away and would not be reusable. These beams will be used by attaching them to their posts with strong angular steel plates.

Some of the dismantling on the ground was done on Tuesday and Wednesday by two of us - enough for a truck load of beams. On Friday three of us worked nine hours and another for the last three to take apart every useful post, beam and knee brace. As it was getting too dark to work, the last pieces came apart and we loaded the generator to return it to the rental site.

A very tired crew drove back north in the dark. When we left the site looked like a giant game of pick up sticks.

Our selective logging friend was to return on Saturday to load all the useful parts onto his large truck and a long trailer for transport to Raccoon Creek. On Sunday we will meet the trucks and stack all the wood better to protect it for the winter.

I'll post lots of barn pictures on the web site next week.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

RaccoonCreekForum open discussion list announced

Due to numerous requests from folks who have been getting our announcements, a new email discussion list has been set up to allow people to ask questions, get answers and discuss Raccoon Creek's progress. Community members will also subscribe to the list so we can answer specific questions about Raccoon Creek.

Subscribers are encouraged to discuss issues related to Raccoon Creek, such as intentional community, green building, permaculture, rainwater harvesting, designing for solar power, etc.

Use the input box in the right column to subscribe to the new list named RaccoonCreekForum. Just enter your email address and click on the purple box.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

A fair day

We just returned from two days at the Simply Living Fair in Bloomington. We spent last night at Raccoon Creek rather than driving home to Indianapolis.

The number of visitors to the fair was down from other years, but the quality of attendees was as high as ever. Many of the participants in the various presentations were as informative as the knowledgeable presenters. There were sessions on homesteading, gardening, herbs, transportation, energy, 32 presentations in all, including a "Chickens in the City" field trip. (I wondered if this was about people afraid to visit the country, but I digress.)

We had a table for Raccoon Creek Community and handed out about a hundred of our new flyers. You can print one for yourself from our web site. Please share it with others.

We met many people who had heard of Raccoon Creek, and many who offered assistance of various sorts. One fellow has been a city planner for many years and offered ideas on working through the various planning stages. One has a landscaping business; at least two have horticulture backgrounds. One woman offered to help us get permission for a larger meeting space for our Bloomington meetings. And we got good advice from timber framers, green builders, and others who wished us well.

Perhaps most encouraging were the people who told me they have been reading this blog. I'll have to check my grammar and spelling better now that I know people are actually reading these posts.

And our new three dimensional map of the site was displayed. Made of cardboard layers cut to match the contour lines on the USGS topographic map for Raccoon Creek, the map was a big hit and made describing the property much easier.

The next meeting is in Bloomington on September 29th. More details will be sent to our "announcements list". If you'd like to be on it, let me know.

Monday, September 12, 2005

Best laid plans

I returned last night from a week out of town all fired up to head down to the barn tonight to get ready to take it down starting tomorrow. This morning when I called the fellow who is running the show for us on this step I learned that the operator of the large piece of equipment that we will use was on vacation! Why we didn't know this before this week was scheduled I cannot say, but the fact is we cannot start until Spetember 27th, two weeks from now.

Some of our community went to the barn site on Saturday and moved another large load of wood to Raccoon Creek. The truck owner tagged a few more trees that need to be taken down to allow the larger trailer to get onto the site, so we will spend a day or so between now and the 28th doing a bit more widening.

This weekend we will be manning a table at Bloomington's Simply Living Fair. If you've got an interest in simplifying your life, this fair is a great place to learn how. Visit our table if you can attend, and plan to have dinner with us on Saturday and/or Sunday evening to talk about Raccoon Creek and our upcoming permaculture course. (Discount deadline is the 21st of September.)

The following weekend may be the best time to restack the barn wood that has already been taken to the site. It should be a great time of year to spend a day at Raccoon Creek, or even to camp overnight. Let us know if you'd like to help for a few hours that weekend.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Last post before there are no more posts

I hope there will only be a few more entries before the entire barn in New Albany is dismantled and moved to Raccoon Creek.

Last weekend we removed all the nails in all remaining wood that has been taken off the building. All the board were stacked in preparation for transporting them to Raccoon Creek, and a large load of rafters and purlins was moved and slid off the truck in the larger clearing.

Help is needed this weekend to load the truck another time and to stack and cover the wood in the clearing. Loading should take less than a few hours on Saturday, faster with more help. Stacking and covering the load in the field on Sunday will take less than an hour. Please let us know if you can help on either end. I am away until Sunday evening, but you can contact me by email with your phone number and I will pass on your offer to the person coordinating the move.

The next work will begin on Tuesday the 13th when help arrives in the form of a few experienced people and some heavy equipment to allow us to take the beams and posts down. If all goes well the timbers will all be on a large trailer in two days, or maybe three.

Once the trailer pulls away, we'll likely need to return to the barn site for a day to do some final cleanup and remove some trash.

It will be nice to be able to concentrate our energy on the Raccoon Creek site after that. I bet you might be tired of reading about the barn, too.