Big Timber Framed Barn Build Part 1 The Design

Morning everyone. So uh, hello puss. Go to the workshop girl. There you go. Anyway, so yeah, so this video is going to be all about the barn design. A lot of you have probably been wondering where I've been because I haven't made many videos recently, but basically I've just been sat designing this barn. It's going to be a major project and it's taken a lot of time to design and get it right, get it just how I want it. So yeah, this video is going to be all about that, um, that process. Oh, hello dear. I didn't know you were back. That's all right. Thought I'd just got here. So, uh, this video is going to be all about the, uh, barn design and, um, and it's just going to be a lot of talking and a lot of looking at the computer, the CAD model. So we'll go up to where it's going to be and I'll show you the position it's going to be in, the location, and then we'll look at the computer. So we're up by the goose house and it's actually their last day of freedom today. Bird flu rules have changed and they've got to be in as of tomorrow. So, uh, yeah, this is the location. Oh, the putty tat's just over there. Yeah. This is the location for the barn. It's going to be quite big. I'll pace it out for you to give you an idea of scale. So it's going to start over here by this fence. Well, not by it, bit of a gap around here somewhere. And then it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 over here, just out of frame. Turn you around a bit. And then it goes all the way over here, all the way over here. So about here and then over here, then back over to that edge. So it's quite large. In fact, it's very large compared to other buildings I've got, but because it's for agricultural equipment and tools and things, it needs to be big. I'm sure a lot of you were around while I was building this. This is my two-story earthbag workshop that the lower floor is earth sheltered. And this workshop is basically used for me to make a living and make things in here and make my videos. I also do the hydroelectric stuff and it enables me to make a living, but it's not really suitable for agricultural purposes. We can't store any vehicles or trailers or tractors or implements or anything like that in here. So really for all that side of the things we do, we need a barn. So that's the reasoning for building the barn. Now there's no point in building a barn small because big things get stored in there. So it's getting built big. The reason I'm starting the barn, so it's just going to be covering that quickly because a lot of people probably thinking, why are you starting another major project when this one's not even finished? This building is like 90% finished and the last 10% is things that don't require many materials. It just requires a lot of time. We're entering into some pretty hard financial times, definitely. I think that things are going to get very expensive and difficult. They're already quite difficult to get hold of and already quite expensive, but that's even going to get even more so. The fact that I don't need materials or money to this is just time, but I do need materials and money to do the barn means that I want to start the barn and get the bulk of that done before. So I think if I wait another year, I'll probably end up paying twice as much for the materials. So I want to get that done. So I've been working on the design for the barn. I used to use little sticks and things before I'd learned CAD. And that's a really good way of modeling something when you don't know CAD, but CAD has changed everything. I'm able to really do the finer details of a design using CAD. So I've done that. I've probably been designing the barn now for, it must be at least a hundred hours sat at the computer. I mean, honestly, I've been there. I've done loads of different versions of it. I've gone through all of the different things I want out of the building and I'm finally happy with it. So I'm going to show you that now. So we'll go over to the computer. We'll have a little chat about the design, why I've chosen it and done it the way it is. When I build a building, something I wanted to cover because I've never really covered before. When I build a building, I don't build it to be absolutely perfect to what my needs are, or the most perfect use of materials or the most perfect in general. I build it around the things, materials that I can get. Because, you know, if you had an infinite budget and you just said, I want this thing here, then you just make it whatever it is, that's the best for you. I don't do that because I don't have an infinite budget. I don't have infinite time. I don't have infinite energy. So I always design around materials. I can get the likelihood that I'll actually be able to finish it. And I also design around being able to film it because that brings in some money and pays for the projects. So there's a lot of considerations that I put in and it doesn't always mean the thing is absolutely perfect. Like for example, this one's using a length of wood that are readily available. I could spend four times as much money, get really long bits of timber and the posts would be further apart and it'd be a more useful space, but I can spend a quarter of the money, get usable lengths that are much cheaper, much easier to get. I can mill them myself and we just end up with some posts in the way. So when you see the model, remember that it doesn't come about because I think it's the absolute perfect solution. The model is structured around materials and things that I can get and do myself, which keeps the costs way down. So yeah, let's go in the house and we'll have a look at the model. Right, let's walk down to the house. Oh man, that's bright, nice change though to have a nice bit of bright weather. Hello girl, hello. The weather has been pretty wet and miserable for the last few weeks. It makes a change to get a nice bright cold day. Yeah, we'll walk back down to the house and sit at the computer and I'll show you the model we've been working on. Let's say I'm happy with it now, it suits our needs and it uses materials and things that I can get myself. We're at the computer. So this is the model of the frame for the building. I've done two different models. One of them is the frame and the other one is the detailed parts, everything else other than the frame. So this model is actually a proper CAD model and we will be using this to actually mark off the lengths and everything onto the timbers themselves. This is actually the design, it's actually all to scale and it's what we shall be using to build it. So I've put in a few things in the model for some scale. So this little shape here is my Land Rover Defender. I've got over here, this is the sawmill. So I've put in access on the side to load logs into the sawmill and then up here on the second floor we've got a thing which is roughly my proportions, my height, my width. So those are the scale, give you an idea of the scale. It's 12 meters across here, across the front and 14 across here. It's sitting on some concrete pads. Some of them are actually like strip foundations and some of them are pads and it sits on these elevated post feet which I've actually started already making. So yeah, that is the frame itself. We've done it on two floors, two floors meaning so that these timbers only had to be just a little bit longer in order to get another whole story out of it and so we doubled the space. We're only going up a little bit higher and not using much more timber so that's the reason for going two stories. It does mean we have a limited headroom under here but from here down to the ground is actually 3.1 meters which is significant. It's plenty big enough for anything I've got and need to put in there. This section down the side here will be for implement storage and stuff, tractor implement storage in the summer and come spring time we will have these as lambing pens just for the lambing season. So yeah, that's the frame and then we'll move on to the detailed what it's actually going to look like after I'm finished. So here is the finished design with all the details, roofing, cladding, everything and the frame I just showed you is inside there. I've also added in the floor and everything. So go over a the materials and things. So it's all made from 8x8 post or mostly 8x8 post. There's a few 8x10s and I think a couple of 8x12s as well. It's all going to be milled here. The roofing is going to be a fiber cement roofing sheet material. I'm speaking to the company about that at the moment. It seems like they're pretty eco-friendly made in the UK solution. I'm going to go with green because to try and make it blend in a little bit and we're going to have large cladding most of the way around at least the lower floor. The top floor is utilizing all the windows and glass I've got laying around the place and it's going to be infilled with a probably wattle and daub type thing and then plastered like a traditional way of doing it which leaves the frame exposed and then we're going to have some windows around the sides as well. Excuse the fact that the color keeps changing I don't know why it does that. So yeah we're going to have wattle and daub and some fancy shaped windows around the side here and then at the back closed in. I've also got some windows left over from when I did the greenhouse and they're going to be always going around the sides there. So there's a total of about 25 tons of timber in there of which I've got most of it here on site. I'm just waiting for a little bit more to be delivered. I'm going to mill it all myself and yeah so that's how it's going to look once it's all done. We've got a staircase in there going up to the top floor and that gives you a pretty good idea of what we're going to end up with once we're finished. To discuss the doors, I was hoping to just clad this area here and just have one set of doors but because of the limitations of timber lengths without five meters is really the longest timber I can get realistically easily and cheaply. So it means that there's a lot of posts along the centre along just off well along there basically that line of of timbers there is all is all posts going along which sort of separates off the building a little bit and as a result it means you can't really access this very well for cleaning it out or anything. So I've put another set of doors on the end here because then you can get to these you can treat it like two separate buildings as such because yeah those posts get in the way a little bit but like I say it's because of timber lengths and it's the best solution I could come up with for it. These might end up getting closed off with doors at some point but for now I'm just going to have them open. Yeah that is the design that is what we shall be making around starting around the end of March. One of the major differences on this project is going to be the fact that I'm going to get some help with it. Normally I do these things these projects completely on my own and they take years and years and years but this one I'm going to get some professional help. It's my design it's I'm going to still be doing the bulk of the work to honest but for the joinery because I'm actually not a very good timber framer in fact I don't really know how to do it at all. I can get by using my woodworking skills but I have no training in it so I'm going to get a timber framer which I know is very good to come and help me with it. Him and a couple of his guys are going to come and just help me with the joinery basically and it's going to really speed it along and it's going to have the added benefit of I'm going to learn how to do it properly from the professionals and as a result you're going to learn how to do it properly. So it's going to be a really good beneficial thing for the channel it means I can make more videos of it and we can learn along the way. So yeah that's going to be the major change they're going to be doing a fairly big build over the winter and they're free at the end of March and that's why we're starting then. It's my job just to get all the foundations and all that kind of stuff ready and a lot of the milling done before then. So that's what we're going to do should be starting soon. All right that's going to be the end of the video hope you enjoyed it and thanks for watching.