Raising the barn roof beams

The previous owners had planned to convert the barn into a cottage with a second floor so had put four extra horizontal beams as the floor support. To have two floors the beams had to be quite low which made the ground floor a bit claustrophobic. 



The plan was to remove the four redundant beams (added to support the first floor) and raise the three structural beams 50cm. As we had the electrician is the gîte to cable for the wi-fi network, I decided we'd finally get this job done. 

Nearly a year ago Dan and I had designed the supports to join the raised beams to the diagonal roof trusses. A local metal works made the custom supports 


As the beams are around 5m long and made of oak, we needed a machine to support them as we cut the ends and then raise them again into place while we attached them. As usual with oak, they might look rotten and wood worm ridden but under the first few millimetres it is sold and very hard. We rented a machine to do the job and it was perfect as each beam is 100-150kg.




 


Comments

  1. Luke14 April 2021 at 10:54

    Even without a height comparison with someone stood there you can see the difference to how open it feels.

    ReplyDelete

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