Small Animal Shed

[Harry Niemann]

Planning to build a small shed for our Historical Society. Plan on using 8X8 timbers from an old barn for the four corners. these would be sunk in the ground about 4 ft. Thinking about painting the bottom 4 ft. with tar like foundation coating to prevent rot. Any other suggestions?

[Ted Calver]

No experience doing this, but would consider using modern PT timbers for the underground part and scarf the old timbers to them. I'm thinking the older timbers will quickly rot, even with the tar coating.

[Todd Burch]

What flavor wood are the old timbers? If black locust or white oak, you'd be wasting your time painting them.

Todd

[Jim Andrew]

My experience with planting old posts in the ground has not been good. Even with osage orange. Use treated posts, or be prepared to replace the posts. Another thought would be to drill post holes, fill them with concrete and put steel anchors in the concrete, which you can bolt your posts to. Flat metal works great for this. I used some 5" wide by 1/2" thick pieces about 3' long, with holes drilled and rods welded in to make the anchors and left the open sides sticking up and put the posts between these and ran bolts through the metal with the post in the center. Put a spacer between the concrete and the post so there is a gap between when you are finished, to keep the end of the post dry.

[Bernie May]

I agree with Jim Andrew. Keep wood above ground.