The roof is gone!

With the help of a rented lift platform, yesterday and today we took down all the rest of the purlins (3/4s of the roof area) and all 124 rafters! What a hoot!

Using the lift, one person rode to the top of the inside of the barn while another climbed the purlins on the lower pitch of the roof's west side. (The upper pitch purlins were removed weeks ago.) Each pried off one end of each rafter and the "lower" person slide his end aside until it fell off the header and dropped to the ground. This was repeated until all the rafters in a bay were dislodged and dropped.

Then the lift was lowered, moved to the next bay, and raised to the top again. The process was repeated, dropping about 6 rafters for each move of the lift, until the whole west side top pitch was removed.

Then the purlins on the east side top were removed so the rafters could be taken down next. On this side the lift was even more helpful. As each bay of rafters was dislodged at the bottom by the person standing on the lower east side purlins, the lift was used to lift them off the bottom while they were still attached to the top header. This made it a simple task to push the wrecking bar under each rafter, unlike the rafters on the other three pitches, most of which were tightly nailed down and took considerable effort to pry them off. Then, as each rafter was pried off at the top, the lift rider hung onto it while he hung up his wrecking bar, and pushed the rafter down over the hip of the roof and gave it a push. Each rafter slid down the lower pitch and landed on the east side of the barn.

Next the lower east side purlins came off, the bottom four or five rows being removed from the list platform, now on the east outside of the building. Using the lift saved probably 3/4ths of the time for these last rows which otherwise would have had to be removed while standing on a ladder, and climbing down to move the ladder every 6 rafters or so.

On this pitch of rafters, from the lift platform, we pried the lower end up and swung it left or right until it cleared the header it had been nailed to. Then it was dropped just as the top pitch of the west side had been dropped, only not so far.

Finally the lower west side purlins and rafters were removed in the same way as the lower east side.

The bad news: many of the rafters broke when they fell. Many were already cracked, especially at the notches. In some cases the length below the bottom pitch notches - the roof overhang - was already disconnected from the rest of the rafter. Only the purlins, attached to adjacent rafters, had been holding these rafter fragments. Obviously, if the roof is rebuilt like it was, the rafters that are broken or damaged cannot be used.

The good news: All but a handful of the damaged rafters will make great joists for the lofts that had no flooring to begin with.

Next: take out nails, stack and load and transport to Raccoon Creek, take down, load and transport posts, beams and knee braces to Raccoon Creek.