2016 - the barn roof

The little barn (it's about 8m x 4m) that came with the 9-11-11 property is in a sorry state.  The roof has several holes and some of the timbers are rotted.  In particular, the joist that supports the kingpost in the centre of the barn has rotted out (among others) at one end and is effectively hanging from the roof ridge which has sagged in the middle as a result.  Notice there is no triangulation at all, the wall plate is way above the joists and the rafters can spread if they want to - and of course they did!

Here it is with an acrow slipped under it back in the summer to prevent further sagging.

Here is the kingpost :

I put two hefty acrows under the joist and tried to jack it up.  It lifted by around 15cm fairly easily, which took up a lot of the slack, but once it was a case of lifting the entire roof including pulling up the rafters, the acrows started to creak a bit due to the forces involved and I left it at that for now.  Compare with the photo above, you can see how much it has moved up.  The tiles will have to come off to replace the damaged rafters, so it would be wise to wait till then before going any further. 

Once I can get it back into position, I will fit sister joists across to reinforce the damaged one and get some 'joists' fitted between the two roof plates to tie them together.  It will be a bit of a strange construction with two layers of joists across the roof, but I dont expect to use the space, so strength comes first. 

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