Sam Barn

Hi mate, surely that would take so much longer for not much gain in ventilation? Need to spend less time on istagram and more time on the roof!

Haha, I guess its not a good idea to advertise free labour. Yes my Sprocker Spaniel keeps me company onsite, but has developed a keen sense of smell for pencils and will crunch any when found! He also likes tape measures and ear defenders, so will probably end up doing my measuring and marking by eye.

Hello everybody, I'm in the process of converting an old limestone barn just south of Bristol. Its a single storey old cow barn about 20 x 5m in size so not massive, but enough for my fiancee and me to live in. Walls are 450mm wide random limestone made from the local stone. I have a small budget, but obviously my labour is free. Up to now I have connected gas, water, electric and sewerage, luckily it was in a village so not too far to bring in all these services. I have also put a new roof on it, I have built three new trusses and put in a series of purlins, as the existing roof was pretty rotten and made from softwood that wasn't original. I have also put in the structual concrete floor. My plan is to have the timber exposed in the ceiling, internal part of the external walls studded out and plaster boarded, while leaving internal partition walls as stone to try and keep some of the history inside. The photo should show the inside of the barns with trusses etc. I've just found this forum, which might of helped me with the bits I've done up until now, but at least I've found it now. I'm currently in the process of put down a new floor and will start on the internal walls when that is finished. My biggest issue is what to do with the exterior walls, I have spent the last year changing my mind and generally just worrying about what to do with them. It would be great to get some advice on this, although I appreciate there is probably no right or wrong answer on what to do. Current plan is: 450mm Limestone walls re-pointed with lime externally Vapour membrane (I was just thinking of continuing the DPM from under the floor and joining into the vapour barrier on the ceiling) 89mm stud wall fixed to the floor and rafters, filled with either PIR or rockwool vapour check barrier service void (25mm battens) plasterboard and skim I should mention that the walls are dry at the moment and drainage is good onsite. The walls are also thicker at the bottom then top so there will be a 20-100mm air gap behind the stud work. When putting in the floor I installed an eggcup (Delta PT type) membrane around the edge to allow any condensation to drain down the inside of the wall to a perforated pipe I installed around the edge of the barn. The drawing attached shows my current plan for the floor/wall/roof. I'm really looking forward to hearing people thoughts on this. Thanks Sam Wall_detail.bmp