This is the Sabbathday Shaker “Stables” in the left foreground and “Ox Barn” in the right background. Perhaps you’ve seen them? They make up the little logo on highway signs telling drivers to “take the next exit!” (And you should, Sabbathday Shaker Village is both fascinating and chill). We’ve performed extensive assessments on both of these buildings, and the Shakers received a $500k grant to repair the Ox Barn, a process we embarked upon this past month.

This is just inside the front gable doors, in the main drive, on the hay floor. The Ox Barn was originally built in 1830, to house Oxen on the ground floor, and store hay on the first floor, where this photo was taken. The frame was altered dramatically in 1891, when the roof pitch was raised to match the Stables Barn in front, and the two barns were connected. The roof pitch was originally much shallower, and the center drive posts significantly shorter.

A post and descending brace, located on the ground floor, exhibit these lovely marriage marks. This is within the original gable end wall, that was extended to connect to the Stables in 1891. That little tent-looking symbol, after the VII, is often used to indicate a gable end.

This barn is huge. It is 46′ across the gable and 87′ along the eave, but its height is truly impressive. The eave posts extend down past the hay level to land on a foundation a full story below. And because of the slope of the grade, the foundation wall itself is 6′ tall at the rear gable. The eave posts, original to 1830, are more than 22′ long. Some of the posts are about 10″ x 11″ at the sill and 10″ x 15″ at the plate. One of the posts is 12″ wide and 17″ deep at the teasel tenon. The photo above was taken on the ground floor, where the Oxen were kept. It shows the south eave wall and the full length eave posts in bents 5, 6, and 7. At the very top center of the frame, you can see how a large carrying timber, 12″ x 12″, which supports the hay floor above, intersects the eave post and rests in a tapered haunch.

The ground floor looked like a time capsule when we visited for our first assessment. Some of the cobwebs were included in the National Register designation. This big honking post is just one story high and supports the carrying timber that supports the drive floor joists. The Ox Barn has undergone a number of stabilizations in its lifetime. I especially liked this series of cables and log bracing installed under the guidance of Sister Mildred in 1967.

We were asked to assess the building after the Shakers observed movement in the south eave wall and these large dramatic checks in a majority of the south eave posts. This photo shows a vertical post, flared at the top to about 12″ wide and 15″ deep. There is a 4′ crack along the grain of the post, also called a “check”. A horizontal tie beam runs from the left side of the photo to the top of the post, and intersects a timber plate that runs from the lower right of the photo, parallel with the eave wall and under a series of common rafters. In an English tying joint, the eave plate rests on the exterior half of the post, and the interior half of the post rises past the plate to join to the tie beam with a teasel tenon. Typically, the tie beam also joins the plate with a half-dovetail-shaped cog. Originally, in 1830, this roof was framed with large principal rafters, which joined directly to the top of the tie beam, with small common rafters filling in-between. In the far background, on the rear gable tie beam, you can see where a little seat was cut into the top of the tie beam to receive the diagonal rafter. When the roof was rebuilt in 1891, the common rafters were reused, but the principal rafters were not. The tie beam had less of a direct role in resisting the outward thrust of the roof, and the plate received that force alone. Later in the 20th century, the timber plate suffered rot and was replaced in a number of sections. The half-dovetail joints at the ends of the tie beams either rotted away or were cut off. The result is that the roof pushed outward on the plate while the tie beam heroically resisted that force at the inner teasel tenon. The connections between the plate and the outer half of the post and the tie beam and the inner half of the post were strong enough, over time, to rip a 12″ post in half like a piece of newsprint.

We aren’t the first folks to try and solve this problem. This photo shows three different stabilization attempts. The earliest is a wrought iron dog, which looks like a big staple. The rough hewn tie beam enters the frame from lower right, and the circular sawn plate runs horizontally across the photo. This plate is a replacement member, and the end of the tie beam, with its half dovetail joinery, was severed during that repair process. You can see a mortise in the top of the tie beam which once received the tenon on the bottom of a principal rafter. After the dog didn’t work, through bolts and cables were installed to help tie the eave walls together. Later, as the framing deteriorated further, large L-brackets made of plate steel were installed to connect the tie beam and plates.

A lot of the problems at the plate level were exacerbated by trouble at the foundation. Decades of drainage problems and frost heaving have shifted the field stone foundation. It would make no sense to repair the tops of the posts until the problems in the foundation were addressed. PTF determined that the most economical way to repair the foundation was by lifting the building on steel. Because so much of the ground floor needed repair, including replacement of the perimeter sills, the steel would be inserted above the sill level, and ground floor framing completely dismantled while the site was excavated and the foundation rebuilt. The Shaker community rallied a legion of volunteers to clean out the cobwebs, lumber and farm equipment. PTF then got to work carefully removing the flooring and documenting the framing. Beneath the floor, we discovered the remains of a few long lost friends.

PTF stripped a lot of later sheathing and cladding from the bottom six feet of the building. Geddes building movers inserted a grid of steel above the sill level and below the hay floor framing. The framing was carefully blocked and shimmed tight to the steel. The steel is supported on a series of cribbing piles inside the building footprint, and hydraulic jacks are placed in the center of the cribbing piles, just below the steel.

The jacks are all controlled from a central unit in the back of this truck. Jimmy Paveglio is operating the jacks while his crew and the PTF crew are monitoring how the frame is lifting. From the dials on the truck, he can identify when the frame is impeded or rubbing on the adjacent Stables building.

On that first afternoon after Geddes had inserted the steel and rigged the building, we were very pleased to come up three inches. It was a good sign that the major lift would go smoothly on the following day, with all the community watching, along with the news cameras.

Geddes goal was to lift the building high enough that the excavators could get their machinery around and under the frame. They were very thoughtful about locating their cribbing piles so as not interfere with forming and rebuilding the foundation. The lift went smoothly, and we reached our goal before coffee break. The result was almost anticlimactic, because the process was so steady. The building went up at about an inch a minute, and we’d released it so successfully that there aren’t any interesting challenges to report. Geddes then helped us disassemble the remaining floor framing.

The photo above shows the frame lifted on cribbing, the drive posts dangling from the hay floor carrying timbers. Those long 22′ eave posts can be seen hanging down along the outside walls. The last ground floor carrying timber, seen in the foreground, will be carefully removed, and then the excavator will remove all the organic matter from within the building footprint. He will dig long trenches for the footers and foundation walls to be poured below grade, and the masons will rebuild the stone walls above grade. PTF is replacing most of the perimeter sills and one of the six continuous carrying timbers. Approximately a quarter of the floor joists will need to be replaced.

The barn will remain at this height until the fall, when we have finished our sill repairs (it has been made weathertight since this photo was taken). Once the building is restored to its new foundation, we can fix the plates and post tops. The Portland Press Herald covered the lift, and Geddes had some great front page photos. I am really looking forward to spending the rest of the summer in New Gloucester.