Coal Barn Demolition

The coal barn is one of the two original outbuildings on the homestead.

Photo taken January 2010

Why do we call it the coal barn? Well, see that little door on the lean-to section on the right? It stored the coal, which at one time was used to heat the house. There's still quite a bit was left in there.

The coal barn is the same age as the house, about 90 years, but hasn't been maintained the same way. It's always leaned a bit and been somewhat rickety, but served for storage and Dan's workshop. Over our five years here, however, it's gotten worse. The floor was so wonky that I almost felt sea sick any time I had to go inside the building. The next major homestead project is a goat barn, right where this one used to be. I say "used to be" because Dan has been tearing it down.

We used the carport to store hay. 

The carport became our hay mow. We covered the sides with tarps to protect the hay from rain. All that remains is one purchased round bale. Our own hay harvest for this year is being stored in the old chicken coop.

At one time the building had electricity, as evidenced by the remnants of knob and tube wiring along the ceiling joists (above). Notice too, that the lumber is simply slices of tree (with the bark still on, I might add). The original roof was cedar shake, but had long since been covered by several layers of asphalt shingles.

We'd hoped to save and reuse as much of the materials as possible. There's been a lot of termite damage and rotting over the years so that most of it is too old and brittle. It's amazing the building hadn't collapsed before now. 

About what it looks like now. We'll leave the carport for storage for awhile.

We've salvaged what we could but most of the lumber is in pretty bad shape. Dan decided to leave the carport for now so that we can store a few things in it. (You can see how we tore that down here.)

The only "find" was an old Clorox bottle.

When new barn construction will begin is anybody's guess. Dan's vacation is over and his new schedule looks to be busier than before, so home time will be more scarce. While he's been working we've been discussing our barn plan (here) and exploring other possibilities. We've come up with another idea which I'll have to show you soon.


[And here's pulling down the rest of it.]

Coal Barn Demolition © July 2014
by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

The New Hearth - A Detour

One of the things tearing down fireplace revealed, was some of the home's original wiring. Behind that fireplace wall is the wiring for the light switch in our bedroom (see Floor Plan if you need to visualize how these things fit together). It was still knob and tube (K&T).

Some of the wiring had been upgraded over the years. A circuit breaker box had long since replaced the fuse box and much of the wiring had been updated to accommodate modern appliances, the HVAC system, and of course the addition.

While we were waiting for the mortar on the hearth to cure it seemed a perfect time to replace the old wiring. The ceramic knobs....

... served to anchor the wiring. The ceramic tubes ...

... enabled it to pass through joists and studs.

What Dan discovered, was that the upgrades were all done only to the wall outlets. The ceiling fixtures were all still K&T. The wiring for the outlets is all in the crawlspace. The wiring for all the ceiling fixtures is all in the attic.

Replacing the old meant new wires and new junction boxes.


As he puts in the new, he has been removing the old. The holes left by the tubes are convenient to run the new wire through.

He also replaced the switch in our bedroom. The photo on the left is of the original one. Actually, it still works fine, we just wanted a different color switch. It's box is ceramic, as were the wire nuts we found in some of the ceiling fixtures.

At the time of this writing, he's about half done. The worst part was wiring the front porch light, because there wasn't much room in the porch part of the attic to work in. Not to mention that there is no flooring anywhere in the attic, it's all joists and insulation. The rest of it should take another day.

Fortunately, this is a once in a lifetime job. Good thing too, considering all the crawling around in the dusty, hot attic Dan has to do. But this will finish it out, so that all the electrical wiring will be up to code. Obviously, it will be a relief to get it done.

Next up - starting to lay the brick wall - click here.

The New Hearth - A Detour text & photos are copyright
September 2009 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/