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A little over a week ago was a major milestone, as the heat pump was turned on for the first time. The big propeller is turning and the pumps are pumping, adding a sound of life to the cellar.  Not exactly something that is easy to show in photos, but look, there's a pump running! The system in the living room, the pufferspeicher and the heat pump itself were filled and set running. It's working away with fairly efficient numbers of 4:1, and is just taking the edge off the cold inside the house.

In the meantime, we built a small bit of scaffolding in order to do some work on the awning over the main barn door. The gutters here were broken for the past two-and-a-half years, since the original scaffolding for the house work was erected, meaning that water had been pouring onto the corner of the house all that time. This has resulted in a pretty damp spot in the cellar at that corner. We've now got nice, shiny new gutters, and the piece of roof I had to truncate has been retiled.

In a way, it was probably a mistake to repoint that part of the cellar wall before it dried out, but it will, I hope, eventually.

And, finally, I made some progress on the ceiling underconstruction in the same cellar. The idea is to insulate the ceiling with 120mm of rockwool, or similar, then seal it off with plasterboard or Fermacell. It was all going swimmingly till I ran out of timber, but I got a delivery of 330 metres last Friday night, so that should keep me going!

Inside the Barn

The grand entrance.

The last barn post had a little about how the barn developed over the years. What I hadn't noticed, till recently, is the year 1905 above the main door. I doubt very much that the piece of plaster the date is on comes from 1905, but it may be a clue as to when the original, simple structure was built, 65 years after the house. Doesn't seem right, but as the house itself housed animals, it could well be.

It's difficult to describe the inside of the barn without referencing how it developed, so I won't bother going into detail here. Just read back to the previous post if a year is mentioned here. Instead, we'll take a brief photo tour, with descriptions.

The main door is 3 metres high, so plenty of room for getting a tractor and trailer in. The lower 3m is stone, with the rest being half-timbered, with 14x14cm oak beams, brick and clay-based plaster. Luckily there's a small, person-size door built into the main door, so it doesn't have to be opened every time.

Upon entering, on the left, there is a small cellar that is not indicated on any of the plans, so we don't know when it was constructed. This area has a low ceiling, with large beams supporting a hay/straw storage area above.

First small cellar on north side (left as entering).

Door to second cellar.

Further to the back is into the area that was extended in 1922, and again in 1947. The door in the photo to the right leads to the cellar in the northeast corner. The wall immediately to the left of the doorway is the eastern wall of the original small barn, so it was quite a modification, removing several metres of the original back wall to extend the main hall. There's a storage area immediately above the cellar, in a fairly awkward arrangement, presumably as there was originally a low, lean-to roof over it until the later extension. This means the floor here is not on a level with the other "floors", as represented by the beams running across the top right of the photo.

Inside the cellar.

Upper levels, looking north.

The two phases of construction can be clearly seen inside this cellar, with slightly different finishes and aging on the left and right sections of the wall opposite the door (the left side of the photo above). The window in this wall was originally a chute, as was the one on the right after 1947, however this has since been covered with earth on the outside (it can be seen that water seeps in if it's wet outside). This will be cleared away and the chutes will be turned into windows to let a little more light in.

Staying on the left side as you enter, above these cellars is large, open space. I'm still estimating, but it must be more than 13 metres from the ground to the apex. The space is crossed with hefty 26x26cm oak beams. I'm pretty sure another floored level or two could be easily accommodated.

Upper levels, looking east from above the first level.

Southern gable of main barn

To the right of the main hall is more or less open space. Once interesting feature is that the gable from the previously adjoining neighbours barn is still there. We know this was from the neighbours barn as the iron anchors that used to tie the gable to the oak cross-beams are still there, hanging useless. The black bar, just below and to the right of centre, would have been in the external wall, from the perspective of the neighbour.

The beams running across the empty space would have held up hay, keeping it aired, and there are boards lying around to be used as temporary flooring.

In the centre of the main hall is what could be considered a shaft, across which no timbers cross. A winch used to operate a hoist here, to lift materials to the higher levels. We'll come back to the winch room in another post.

The extension to the south, which was built in 1960, is a much simpler affair, being a lean-to in form, and consisting of an open plan feeding hall, with hatches along the southern wall allowing feed to be popped directly into the troughs on the other side. Entry to the hall is via a pair of large, sliding doors. To the left, there are two openings leading into the main barn.

The feeding hall.

The other side was then, of course, all stalls, in a kind of building within a building, as can be seen on the right of the photo above. There are lots of south-facing windows in the stalls area, so it's nice and bright. The posts are not supporting, so we'll probably remove them to open this up a bit and use it as a workshop.

The stalls.

The Barn

Location of the barn.

The barn is a massive structure, with a 360 sq.m. footprint (c. 23x16m), and around 12m high at the highest point, giving it a rather large volume. As described earlier, it has undergone considerable extension, starting with a relatively small rectangular footprint, with stone construction for the lower 3m, and the remaining as half-timbered, much as it is today.

This modest barn was extending into an irregular polygon (see the red elements in the plans below) around 1922 when the main hall was extended, incorporating a ground floor cellar. The odd-shaped footprint seemed to be on account of the plot of land being irregular, and the little corner that would have made it square falling on a neighbour's plot of land.
 

Extension floor plan, August 1922.

Extension elevation and sections, August 1922.

By 1947, this was resolved, and the building was squared with another extension, enlarging the cellar at the same time. The plans we have from this time illustrate what it must have looked like back then rather well (see the elevations at the bottom of the image below), and show a much more complex roof surface than exists today.

Extension proposal, May 1947.

 At this point in time, the southern side of the barn (or the left side, when looking at the Hintere Ansicht (Ost), at the lower left of the image above) was adjoined by a neighbours barn, unfortunately not shown in these plans. By 1960, this adjoining barn was razed, and a "modern" extension built onto the southern side housing stalls and a "feeding hall".

Extension proposal, April 1960

At some point in time, the roof on the main barn was simplified into the two surfaces it currently has, but we have no records of when that was done, but presumably between 1947 and 1960.

The barn viewed from the east, January 2011.

Lots of ladders in the main hall.

The main building currently comprises of a central hall, to the north of which are two “cellars” (one was not marked on the above old plans), which are partially underground owing to the barn being built into a slope. Above this is a large, open volume, currently home to bails of straw, spread across several “floors”, for want of a better word. Some of these floors are made of planks, some are simply round timbers laid between the large beams, allowing air to circulate  below the straw, which essentially provides a surface to walk on. One level is like a room within the barn, with a door at one side, but open on the other, the reason for which is a complete mystery to me, but may represent an upper-level door in the former external wall of the original barn. Several ladders, firmly attached to the structural beams, provide access to these upper levels, and are not a climb for those suffering from even the slightest touch of vertigo.

The stalls in the 1960s extension

The extension on the southern side is simple, being divided into two halves, one with a large door for access, and the other with a smaller door. The former might be described as a feed hall, with hatches providing access to the feeding troughs in the stalls housed in the southern half.




 

Former line of gable at southern end clearly visible, January 2011.

We have no concrete plans for the barn at this stage. The structure appears sound, though some spot repairs to edges of the roof and the gutters is required. We’d like to replace the asbestos sheeting roof of the extension with something else, but even that will have to wait a couple of years, as it is not currently a risk, as they are not decaying. The cellars could do with some freshening up, and the exposed steel beams of their ceilings treated with a rust preventer, and we’ll dispose of the straw, most likely giving it to someone in the locality whose barn burnt down, and who needs bedding for his horses. The stalls would make a great workshop, as it's bright and airy there, so that might be where some of the old furniture will get restored.

However, the biggest short-term job that needs to be done is satisfying the requirements of fire protection, and new rules that came in a couple of years ago. As the house is almost touching the barn, certain measures (we're not sure what yet) have to be taken, but at least the timbers are over a certain dimension threshold, and it appears the filling between the timbers is brick and plaster, and not wattle and daub, which helps. Fire retardant materials or windows may need to be used on the eastern gable of the house to satisfy the rules, which we believe are the remaining outstanding issue for our planning application.

The barns from the front, January 2011.

Of course the brewer in me has all sorts of dreams for the barn, but that’s another story.

I'll post more photos of the interior once the weather brightens up.

The Lay of the Land

Before taking a closer look at the outbuildings, I thought it'd be useful to set the scene with a look of how the complex has developed over the past 100 years (well, about 90) based on plans we were given by the previous owners.

Lageplan from February, 1922.

In 1922, the then owner had applied to extend the barn (the extension marked in red on the plan to the right shows the planned extension to the barn, 179), so we have a general plan of the lands immediately surrounding the house from the planning application. Those plots of land and buildings marked as 179 were part of the property (I've shaded out everything else to make it clearer). Bearing in mind that this was a working farm, it seems small, but we know there were other land holdings nearby, and indeed these were still part of the overall property till we bought the house and immediate surrounds. The corridor marked by the two parallel lines at the bottom of the plan is a small stream. The building, marked 180, was another barn owned by the neighbour. Access to the house and the barns was via a small way, just leading left of the neighbour's barn. It's also interesting to note the little extension at the back of the main house. The current extension is wider than this, but it shows that there was something there before. In fact, this was a bake house, something the previous owner had mentioned, but we hadn't realised how important a part of the house this was till we saw another plan from 1937 that shows the house still divided into two separate halves (note no doors between the halves, and still two sets of stairs, one of which is now gone), and a Backkueche in one.

Floor plan of 1st floor, March 1937.

Lageplan from March, 1937.

It's odd that the ground plan in 1937, shown below, doesn't include the barn extension that was planned in 1922, but we know from later plans that it was most certainly extended, but we'll take a look at the development of the barn in another post. Perhaps plans were not being updated during the war years. The 1937 plan we have was for other works on the main house (a new chimney, and we think new windows on the eastern gable), so the extent of the barn was not essential to the planning.

Lageplan from March, 1960.

By 1960, the property boundaries had simplified considerably, between exchanges of land and a general straightening of boundaries, presumably as the lands around this area were, and indeed still are, part of a Flurbereinigungsgebiet - a rural land consolidation area where slivers of land are exchanged to simplify borders. We have a ground plan because there was yet another application to extend the barn. This time, the adjoining barn of the neighbour (shaded in yellow), and the accompanying plot of land on which it sat, was bought, and the older barn demolished to build an extension for stalls to the barn, which by this time has already been considerably extended. We don't know what the smaller building to the west, also shaded yellow, was, but it was probably knocked down at the same time. Access to the house at this time was still via the small "Weg". By now, the stream may have been partially covered, as it is today. We don't know when the access road at the back of the property dates from, as it was not shown in any of the earlier plans, but it provides a decent access to the land behind the house.

Lageplan from December, 2010.

Not much has changed to the boundaries since then, but the current plan shows the extent of the barn as it is today, more or less three times the size of the original footprint. As a former surveyor, I also have to laugh that the extension to the house (Whs - Wohnhaus) has still not been updated since 1922, as the "new" extension that replaced the former oven is actually twice the width. The biggest change seems to be access, as the former Weg which approached the house at an angle is now a straight road running north-south (and we own part of the paved street).

In total, the plot of land is just short of 3,000 square metres, or about 3/4 of an acre (unless it's an Irish acre). It feels bigger, especially when contemplating cutting the grass.