Don’t Tear Your Building Down Just Yet...

Last year, a guy called me up—he’d just bought a farm as kind of a retirement project. Nothing too crazy, just growing some hay, living the dream. The place came with an old 50'x80' hay shed, but the posts were rotten and it was looking pretty rough. His plan? Tear it down and build something smaller that wouldn’t cost a fortune.

So I went out to take a look. And standing there, I thought—why are we tearing this building down? Yeah, the posts were rotten, but the structure itself was solid. The trusses were still good, roof had a few soft spots, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

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I priced out a few options for him and we ended up saving the barn. We stripped the roof metal, reroofed it, replaced all the posts with brand-new ones on screw piles to keep them out of the ground. Inside, the floor was out of level by 4 feet—so we brought it up within a foot to keep things practical (without creating a big ramp at the front). We added metal cladding 5 feet down the sides, and below that on one side we ran a shade cloth all the way to the ground to block snow and give it some shelter.

Now? It looks like a brand-new barn—and he was stoked. Way happier than if he’d torn it down and built a smaller one. For more information on the finished repair, here’s a short YouTube video that shows us going through the process.

If you’ve got an old out building, don't just tear it down, give us a shout first. We’ll come take a look and help you figure out what makes the most sense.