“My Barn has been standing for 100 years. It should be good to go!”
This is the phrase I am often greeted with when a client asks me to help them with a barn conversion. Unfortunately, this is the biggest myth about barn conversions: Why can’t I just move in and use it? While that statement may be true, we want to make sure it stands for another 100 years and, more importantly, when you have people in it!
The building code has three parts: an agriculture section, small buildings, and large buildings, along with assembly uses. The agriculture code deems the building and its contents less important and thus allows certain reductions in structural, comfort, energy, fire, and safety requirements. When you want to change that use from agriculture to other (residential, commercial, events, etc.), you now have to meet the requirements of the code as your building and its occupants are more important.
First
The first and foremost step is to understand what upgrades you need, and then you can understand the costs associated with it and if you can take on the project.
At VELD, we do this by Project Scouting. We find this up-front research really saves a ton of headaches in the long run. We recently had a client come to us with all her zoning in place, 2 years of work and fees with a planner, but no one evaluated the barn for its structural capacity to be converted. It turns out the costs to convert her specific barn were more than her budget, significantly compromising the design concepts and opening timeline.
Our Project scouting for barn conditions generally involves evaluating a few key items: structural condition, code compliance, and also some history to understand your barn’s story. We present the issues as well as the solutions and tricks we use for our clients!
Some of the most common structural upgrades we end up making are roof reinforcement, foundation repairs, and floor strengthening for those wild dance parties! Some barns need all and some need less. We present the upgrades and we present options for solving these issues depending on your budget, your aesthetic goals, and what works best with the layouts and functions of your barn conversion.
Second
The second review we do is code compliance, mostly relating to fire safety.
We use a special part of the code that not all architects or engineers are comfortable with, but it gives you some (not all) relief from code requirements when you make this type of change of use. We’ve done so many things, and we found some great tricks to save hundreds of thousands of dollars on expensive things like sprinkler systems! But there are some things that are unavoidable. You can expect to encounter floor fire ratings and additional exit doors! And no, your sliding barn door does not meet the code for an exit, as you cannot guarantee that the door will be open in an event, and we all know how heavy it can be! You typically need 2 exits, and you have to watch that when the sliding door is open or closed, the exit door is available in case of fire.
Washrooms are another big issue with barn conversions for your agritourism operation. They are required along with a septic system. This can be very costly, $20,000-$100,000, depending on the use and number of people in the barn and on your property. Some municipalities permit temporary washrooms, but not often, so count on that without written permission from the building department.
Third and Last
One of the last biggest challenges with a barn conversion is insulating.
The light streaming through the cracks in the wood is beautiful and great for natural ventilation systems but not very energy efficient. The code requires energy efficiency for certain types of buildings. Generally, a minimum of R24 for most buildings. Depending on if you are dismantling and rebuilding or renovating in place (yes, these are both good options depending on the results of the structural report), there are different options for insulating. We help you decide the best way to do this, depending on your exact situation. But remember, the barn is really big in volume and area, so drywalling the ceiling 30 feet in the air is no small feat! There are alternatives and creative solutions.
Many clients admire their old barns and wonder, “How can I use this barn again?” because they love them and truly want to save them. We hope that we haven’t discouraged you too much. There are solutions and priceless benefits to doing a barn conversion (we should write an article on this, too!). We tell our clients a barn conversion is “a labour of love,” and you will love your conversion when you are done!