What’s Old Wood Worth?
By Sean O'Hara
Creative woodcrafters and hobbyists alike have turned to alternative sources for the rare wood and sweet deals they crave. We support this trend — it brings recycling and a certain amount of free-thinking to woodworking. Lately, we’ve heard this question a lot: How much should I pay for this recycled wood from old barns or 100-year-old houses?
The quick answer is, it’s worth as much as you’re willing to pay for it. Sure, you can weigh in a few factors, such as, what are you looking to do with the wood? But when it comes right down to it, you must decide whether or not a crossbeam from an old barn in Quaker country is worth as much as your first car.
There are two basic schools of thought here. The first is the bargain-hunter — we use that term with as much affection as possible, as we normally fall into that category ourselves. These guys want good wood for less cash than retail and are willing to look in odd places to get it. The other is the treasure-hunter: the guy who simply must have that pile of 80-year-old barn slats, because the dining room table he’ll make from them will put a big smile on his wife’s face. Both guys, looking at the same wood, will value the stock differently; and the party selling it will undoubtedly have a third value in mind.
Keep your project and purpose in mind, and make sure you know the going rates for retail wood and other antique wood, before diving into a custom deal. Check your local outlets, and talk to other woodcrafters in your area. A deal might be sitting right under your nose. Most of all, remember that if someone values their stock above your budget, there are other deals out there. Don’t feel bad about it — find another source.
Antique Wood [Old Barn Wood]
Salvaged Wood [Heritage Barns]
March 19th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
There is one problem with salvaging barn wood. When you salvage the wood, you lose the barn. American barns (everything from plain old corn cribs to the famed Pennsylvania bank barns) are icons of the American landscape and are disappearing at an alarming rate. Though much of the disappearance is due to neglect and the demise of small farms themselves, increasingly barns are vanishing and turning up as paneling, tables, cabinets, recording studio walls, and other recycled projects.
The Smithsonian Institution did a traveling exhibit a few years ago called “Barn Again.” The National Trust for Historic Preservation listed the American Barn among the top ten most endangered architectural structures. Living in the south, you still see barns pepper the landscape. But you don’t see as many. How many log cabins do you see on the landscape? If you troll around craigslist you’ll find folks offering their barns for sale all the time. How much longer before the wooden barn becomes as rare as the cabin?
If the barn is falling apart and needs to be torn down for safety’s sake, then by all means someone should recycle that wood. I just wanted to mention that unlike most recycling efforts, there is a downside to recycling barn lumber. There are only so many of them left.
March 19th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Correction: The American Barn, generically speaking, was not listed on the National Trust’s most endangered list. Sorry about that. Individual barns have been listed, and all of the southern Maryland tobacco barns were listed. Sadly, it doesn’t change the fact that barns are disappearing across the country.
March 19th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Back in the day, my Dad and I salvaged wood from an old barn to floor the new house addition. My step mom’s cousin was selling his small farm and the barn was going to be demo’d for a new housing development. We went through lots of miter saw and planer blades. In recent years I have heard of people using metal detectors to find all of the metal. I WISH WE HAD BEEN THAT SMART but the floor is absolutely beautiful and well worth the cost and time.
I do agree with “Paul”, it sucks that there is a limited amount of these old barns and someday they will be gone.
March 19th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
perhaps not everyone who sells the wood off the barn does away with the rest of it. If I could sell the old wood on the barn and buy new wood for it and make a profit in the process, I’d probably go with that, especially if the people who wanted to old wood would do half the labor taking it down.
March 19th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
A long time ago (in a galexy far, far away) I used to work for a company that took apart barns for the lumber. Most of what we salvaged was barns that were already down or badly damaged by storms and neglect, but we would take down anything that the owner wanted gone.
The last job I worked on was disassembling a very old, almost completely solid oak 2 1/2 story barn. The barn was in great shape and at least 200 years old, since I found one of the replacement pine siding boards with the date 1901 on it. I know the farm it was on pre-dated the majority of the town, at least. We took that barn down and got a lot of lumber out of it, and do you know what they put up in that spot? One of the unfortunately many insane churches in the area put a freaking currogated steel pole barn up there as a church. The hell??? If they had just taken all of the floors out of one end of the barn and presure-washed the main beams, and then re-sided and insulated the building, the simple age and beauty of the barn’s design would have lent the sanctuary a very holy aura. Instead what they got was something cheap farmers throw up to put sheep in. Hurrah.
Anyhow, I remember de-nailing boards with a combination of a pair of vice-grips and an automotive dent-puller on the other side, then pressure-washing and cutting to length the beams and planks. Eventually a semi or three would turn up and haul the wood off.
I remember being told that at least a few barns-worth of 100+ year old oak, cherry, ceder, spruce, and pine was being sent to France for wood paneling on houses. Crazy!
I still have a few samples of raw wood and polished wood around somewhere. I’ll tell you what, you compress cherry or oak for 150 years with a few hundred tons of weight on it, it makes some VERY hard to work with, but completely georgous, wood.
March 19th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
My wife loves the look and texture of barnwood furniture, so I’ve been on the lookout for alternate sources.
If you don’t need a lot of structure, old cedar fence boards are the best I’ve found. There’s not a lot of historical value in my neighbor’s 15 year old leaning monster.
I’m also looking at ways of making ‘faux’ barnwood. I have the texture down (distress the piece with a paintbrush comb) and some test pieces on the roof trying to sun-bleach the right color. Anybody else trying this?
If they’re a hazard, get all the use you can out of them, but all in all, I like old barns on the landscape.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I live in a rural area and just on my route home from work there have been 5 old barns taken down in the last two years. When there aren’t many left that is a significant number.
My original barn (40 x 60) was built in 1906 with an equal size addition in 1951 so we have a two story 60′ x 80′ to house our 33 llamas, hay, scale, tack and equipment. Interesting that they built the addition just like the 1906 original, were it not for the ceramic block (nice to clean) they used for the first floor level and the steel beams they had to put in to replace the sagging wood ones, you couldn’t tell it was 45 years younger.
A modern barn would be much easier to maintain but certainly lacks the character of the older ones. We are putting up steel barn siding on this to do a quick cover up that will seal out the drafts and preserve the wood siding that will stay exposed on the inside. We’ve put in all concrete floors, replaced missing and falling apart doors and windows and ripped out old rotting feeders. (Side note, I used the oak, full 1-by lumber from a big hay feeder to “panel” my kitchen when it was remodeled. Neat effect!) These old monsters are very expensive to maintain and it’s no wonder they aren’t, especially when they are no longer being used.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
One other barn experience. My dad sold his 1860s-era barn from the farm when he was retiring and moving to Florida to a guy for $1,000. Huge, long hand hewn beams, wide board siding (most of it 10 inches wide and up) and two inch thick 20 and 30 foot flooring. Stipulation was he take it down and take it ALL off of the property. He even took the foundation stones! Those beautiful beams still haunt me to this day, wish I had all of them.
Growing up my brother took a barn down… with a chain saw. Burned it up for fire wood. It was the early 70s. Ouch!
March 21st, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I actually just bought a load of old barn wood from someone last week. I’ve been waiting for years to come across some old beams and whatnot to use for several projects. I finally found an ad on craigslist for someone with old barn wood. The barn went down in a storm last year - it was built around 1900. I’ve been amazed at how easily the wood (most of it is pine) cleans up and how gorgeous it looks.
A couple friends in college met someone who needed a barn torn down and they agreed to do it for free if they could keep whatever money they made selling the wood. Turns out that the entire barn was made from chestnut and they made far more money than they ever dreamed of!
April 5th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Humans have been tearing down neat buildings and using the materials to build new buildings throughout history. It’s simple resourcefulness, and frankly environmentally enlightened. However, I’ll agree that it can be historically painful.
While it’s certainly a good idea to preserve some old buildings like this with things like the national register of historical places, but I think it’s a bad idea to have such a negative stigma against people wanting to make use of the materials resource rather than leaving an unwanted building littering the landscape while building with completely new materials. Naturally the example of tearing down a great old building and replacing it with something ugly would best be avoided as well. Hopefully someone reused the materials at least.
That old lumber is great. Years ago my dad demo-ed (past tense of demo?) old buildings to build the home he’s living in today. I think seeing that in my formative years contributed to my environmental awareness today.