Eric Johnson said:
I'm trying to imagine how you would get a Garn into a basement. Need a garage door on one end or one heck of a big cellar door.
Hello Eric,
Long time since you sent this reply to my statement about putting Garn into a basement.
The original (now modified) plan was to put it into the ground level of the barn, when we convert our barn into our home.
The ground level is where the milking parlor was, and yes - there are two garage door sized openings, one at either end, which would have allowed the Garn to be 'driven in' with an appropriate forklift.
The idea was to (a) have a wood burner which would not belch smoke and flames at us when we open the door to load it with wood, and (b) not have to go outside to load the thing.
We will now simply add a small building (16x20?) to barn/house the garn and about a cord of wood. We will have (as you mention) a garage door opening on this building so we can drive in with 1/2 cord of wood (in the crates we have) with the Bobcat.
The small building will be attached to the barn/house, and we will simply walk into the basement, go through a door to the Garn Room, load the burn box, turn on the fan, and walk back upstairs to continue with whatever we were doing.....never even putting on a coat, but likely putting on heavy leather gloves to keep our hands baby-butt-soft and free of splinters.
We now have the second iteration of barn-to-house plans from the artichect.... dreams becoming a plan, plan may be reality in 2009. It won't be DONE, but we may be able to eat Thanksgiving dinner in the new barn/home.!.......and be heating it with a GARN, of course.
The barn is large - 36X104, with the hay mow area being 25 feet from mow floor to roof peak. The roof/walls are made of arched laminated beams, so in the hay mow area there are no posts, no beams. When you stand on the hay mow floor and look up it is as if you are inside a large wooden boat, the boat is turned with mast down and keel straight up, and you are standing on what would be the underside of the deck. You look up and 'see' the ribs of the boat, roof peak is like the keel of the boat. We will leave all the ribs (arched laminated beams) exposed, and spray closed cell polyurethane foam as the roof/insulation/flashing/water barrier/vapor barrier - from peak to 2 feet below grade.
We are amassing materials for the conversion.
We have all the flooring (marble), all exterior doors and windows (about 80 windows), all interior doors, lighting for the hay mow and lighting for the (former) milking parlor (soon to be basement workshop/garage/horse grooming and tack area).
I find much of the material on CraigsList, or obtain it from a local Habitat for Humanity, and in a week or so I will be obtaining a few thousand linear feet of (used, carefully removed and denailed) 2-by material (2x4 through 2x12) at about 20 cents on the dollar for framing.
Gosh, this (late) reply sure became lengthy.
Sincerely,
Hankovitch
