# Closing Hayloft Door



## mystang89 (Feb 17, 2018)

Ok, first, I guess this is the best place to put this.  Second, my curiosity got the better of me.  I've always been interested in being able to do things the way my grandfathers father was able to and when I moved into this house last year it came complete with an old barn.  I noticed a large hayloft door on the front of the barn that I've been wondering how it worked.  Yesterday I decided to open it.  It had a long rope attached to it so I slowly lowered the door.  As the door lowered, I was raised off the ground.  Fun times.  I had no choice but to let go of the rope which then let the door slam open, breaking the windows on the bottom at the same time.

  The children and I tried to raise it again to no avail.  Below are the pictures of what I'm working with.
 
  The door isn't as heavy as it looks but gravity and the law of physics are working against me.  As you can see in the picture....no windows now.





  This is the tract that runs the entire length of the barn which the pulley assist slides on.



 
  This is a picture of the pulley assist that is there.  Right now the pulley is currently "stuck" on a flange that is on the track.  The flange keeps the pulley assist from moving when you are using it correctly.  You can see the two pulleys on both sides but there is also one that belongs in the middle which is pictured below.


 
  The pulley on the right hand is the pulley that goes in the middle.  There are two metal clips that hold this middle pulley in.  When the rope is snaked through the pulleys and you pull on the rope it will lift this middle pulley up.  When the middle pulley is lifted up it pushes the clips out which allows the pulley assist to move freely on the tract.  Right now the pulley assist is currently "stuck" on the flange because this middle piece isn't in the assist system and I can't reach it at the moment.

  Here is a link to what I "think" the barn is supposed to look like. http://www.coolmodelengines.com/html_pages/barn_carrier_descript.html

  You'll see a little less than half way down the page that it talks about a support cable and return wire.  I don't know what either of those are nor where they would attach too.  I don't know how this pulley assist system would be able to pull this door up either.  If I pull on the rope in order to pull the door up then the middle pulley will be pushed up thereby releasing the clips which are holding the assist system to flange that is on the track.  When the assist system is moved backwards towards the person pulling then physics makes it near impossible to lift the door because your pulley is further back than the fulcrum of the door.

  This is another picture that I've found which has the ropes laced around the assist system differently than it was here and differently than I've seen.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Cl...y-Pulley-Barn-Rope-/152450422594?roken=cUgayN

  Is there anyone who has better knowledge of this than me.  How can i close this door the way it was done many years ago?  The person who lived here before us said the only way they managed to close the door was by having a person on the ground taking a long 2x4 and raising the door with another person in the loft pulling the rope.  It was then tied off to the beams in the loft. I'm NEAR positive this was not the way it was done back when.  Thanks very much.

  P.S  There are other pulleys hanging around along with hooks as well which look similar to the wooden pulley on the left of that picture with both pulleys on the tire.


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## Latestarter (Feb 17, 2018)

Ummmm If you cant reach the main pulley system riding on the beam, I think you've got a pretty decent problem to fix. I believe you first need to get a long heavy rope attached to the end of the carriage, then through the lower pulley (dropped down to ground level) then back up through the rear (barn side) pulley. You then need another rope attached to the outside of the carriage so you can pull it to the stop at the end of the rail (to get better leverage on the door you'll be lifting). Raise the hanging pulley up to release the lock catches then pull the carriage to the end of the rail. Lower the drop pulley back down level with the (now) bottom of the door to be raised. Attach it as the diagram shows, then pull the door back up. 

If the door is too heavy to lift this way, take a second pulley attached to a beam back in the barn and run the pull rope through it and back toward the opening. If you then stand near the opening pulling the rope (toward the opening now) you should have cut the weight in 1/2.


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## Latestarter (Feb 17, 2018)

This showing with TWO pulleys inside the barn (even less effective weight to lift) and you can stand on the ground an pull up the door. Of course once it's back up, you'll need to tie off the rope and climb up to secure the door closed. First, you'll need to get out to the carriage and either release the lock catches so you can roll in back into the barn to work on, or do the rope attachments to the carriage while it's out there then lift the lower pulley up to release the catches. Both ropes (the black one and the red one diagramed) will be attached at the front of the carriage. One will just hang to be thrown out and down to the ground to pull the carriage to the stop. The other will go back over the front pulley, down under the lifting pulley and back up through the rear pulley, then back into the barn to run through additional pulleys to effectively reduce weight being lifted.



Sorry about the broken windows... Hope I've explained it well enough that you can fix it.


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## mystang89 (Feb 17, 2018)

@Latestarter !!!Thank you so much for taking the time out to make those diagrams for me!!!  Its snowed pretty good today so I won't be able to get out there today but I will be going to see what the barn has to offer me either tomorrow or the next day and I'll post again then, hopefully with a success story.  Thank you again very much!


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## Latestarter (Feb 17, 2018)

Be careful there in the doing... wet, cold, snow/ice not a good combination when working at height, ladder involved or not. Glad to be of service.  Looking forward to a successful recovery


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## mystang89 (Feb 18, 2018)

Someone found this. 




Quick question. It seems they have a rope tied to the middle pulley and towards the end of the video the guy is supposed to say "drop it". When that happens someone else pulls this rope and the hay falls out. How did he get that middle pulley to come unlatched just with the rope? I thought the only thing that unlatched the middle pulley was the flange at the end of the track so you could lower it to get the hay or door.

Edit Nevermind. The middle pulley doesn't come down to release the hay, the class just open up.


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## Bruce (Feb 18, 2018)

You wanted to replace that window with a design/material more appropriate to the age of the barn anyway, right? 

Great find on that video. I love this sort of stuff. My barn doesn't have an upper floor so no hay carrier track. They must have pitched it off the wagon in the drive bay into the mow on the south side.

I think your best bet is to get all the parts down off the track, clean and lube them well and make sure everything can connect/disconnect as designed. The text in @Latestarter's first picture is in error, the ONLY pulley that is giving mechanical advantage is the one that lowers and raises. It decreases the effort by 50%. You need to pull the rope 2 feet to raise the pulley 1 foot. In fact, all those other pulleys serve only to redirect the pull line down to the horse/tractor and INCREASE the effort needed a small bit since each pulley and redirection will add a little resistance.

I imagine you wouldn't need the tow line that pulls the carriage out to the stop just to raise the door. That would require an extra person or a lot more travel on your part. Just use a stick up in the hay mow to push the carrier out the few feet it needs to go. Unless, of course, you are actually moving a lot of hay up into the mow, then that extra person pulling the carriage back would be quite useful. You would have someone (or 2)  down there attaching the hay hooks to the hay anyway.

ASSUMING you have no need to raise/lower the door with the assistance of a tractor or draft horse and the door is too heavy to pull by hand with the 50% mechanical advantage of the raising pulley, you can connect the pull rope to another leverage advantaged block and tackle system up in the mow. And you'll likely have to do some trial and error to figure out how long the lifting chain(s) have to be for the best mechanical advantage. Are there any obvious connection points on the door? I don't see anything on the horizontal piece as is shown in the coolmodelengines page and the peak of the door is hidden in your picture but that is where the connection point is in the video.

I'd love to see follow-on pictures as you work on this.


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## mystang89 (Feb 18, 2018)

You read my mind Bruce! That is exactly what was going through my head as I was acting as a counter weight being lifted into the air. Self: "You know, I need to give the wife a good reason to replace that window below me!" LMBO. Really gave me a good laugh

I will definitely be posting pictures if for no other reason than so you all can help me know if I need to correct things. 

It's supposed to rain all this week so I'll probably not be getting to it since I'll have to raise the bucket on the tractor, then climb into that bucket with my extension ladder and hope that is long enough. We'll either I'll post pictures of the progress or I'll make sure the wife posts pictures of my hospital


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## Baymule (Feb 18, 2018)

I love old barns. You are so fortunate to have this barn! I'll be watching your progress on this. I always wondered how hay was lifted to the loft too!


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## Bruce (Feb 19, 2018)

Make sure the wife gets pictures of you just before you need to go to the hospital, wanna see how far you fall   OK, not really. Maybe you better put a big ol' haystack under the projecting part of the roof.


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## Jeanne Sheridan (Feb 26, 2018)

Our front barn is the same age as our house, 102 years old.  It is a different style and we have swing to the side as opposed to the swing down loft doors.  A neighbor who has your style and even with an active pulley system I wouldn't want to have to open and close it regularly.


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## Bruce (Feb 27, 2018)

I do have to wonder why people would make huge bottom hinged doors. That is a lot of weight to lift and the leverage needed when it is all the way down is substantial. I guess one reason is you don't have to worry about the wind blowing it shut.

How are the big side hinged doors opened and closed? Obviously you can't lean out the opening to reach the edge of the door to "latch" or pull it back closed.


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## mystang89 (Feb 28, 2018)

I wandered the exact same thing but i figured they new better than me. In all honesty though I really can't think of a single reason why you would prefer the top down to the side open.


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## Latestarter (Feb 28, 2018)

But the important question yet to be answered... Have you got the contraption working and is the door closed?


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## mystang89 (Feb 28, 2018)

Lol, door is still open. I'm currently trying to find one other pulley and then I'll be able to put it all together.


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## Latestarter (Feb 28, 2018)

Oh, OK... thought you had said there were other pulleys laying around in the barn...  Waiting on video is all...


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## mystang89 (Mar 1, 2018)

Haha, lll be sure to have one of the children video it. There was another pulley in the barn and I found 1 more somewhere else but to put the complete puzzle back together I need one more. One of my wife's friends said she thought she knew someone who had one so hopefully soon. Fingers crossed!


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## Bruce (Mar 1, 2018)

Yep, that has to be a hard find. Very specific to the task.


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## Jeanne Sheridan (Mar 1, 2018)

Bruce said:


> I do have to wonder why people would make huge bottom hinged doors. That is a lot of weight to lift and the leverage needed when it is all the way down is substantial. I guess one reason is you don't have to worry about the wind blowing it shut.
> 
> How are the big side hinged doors opened and closed? Obviously you can't lean out the opening to reach the edge of the door to "latch" or pull it back closed.


I’ll try to get pictures posted tomorrow. Our barn is a little different. The doors are on the sides not the ends.  I’ll try for a picture of the out side and the inside. The only problem could be heavy rain


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## Jeanne Sheridan (Mar 2, 2018)

View attachment 44705 nne Sheridan, post: 541968, member: 17015"]I’ll try to get pictures postd tomorrow. Our barn is a little different. The doors are on the sides not the ends.  I’ll try for a picture of the out side and the inside. The only problem could be heavy rain[/QUOTE]
We finally got a break in the rain. Picture 1 is the west side of the barn facing the house.  The only door on this side is the one through the birthing shed that was added sometime after the barn was build.  Picture 2 is the south side of the barn with the two loft doors circled in blue.  Picture 3 is the west loft door from the outside.  Picture 4 is the inside of the same door.  I circled the rope that has been on the door since we bought the property.  When the door is closed it hooks onto the wall beside the door.  When its open it hooks onto the hinge side of the door.  The east side is a mirror image of this door and is the one we use for a hay elevator. Hopefully this summer I'll replace the rope with a leather strap.


Jeanne Sheridan said:


> I’ll try to get pictures posted tomorrow. Our barn is a little different. The doors are on the sides not the ends.  I’ll try for a picture of the out side and the inside. The only problem could be heavy rain



We finally got a break in the rain. Picture 1 is the west side of the barn facing the house.  The only door on this side is the one through the birthing shed that was added sometime after the barn was build.  Picture 2 is the south side of the barn with the two loft doors circled in blue.  Picture 3 is the west loft door from the outside.  Picture 4 is the inside of the same door.  I circled the rope that has been on the door since we bought the property.  When the door is closed it hooks onto the wall beside the door.  When its open it hooks onto the hinge side of the door.  The east side is a mirror image of this door and is the one we use for a hay elevator. Hopefully this summer I'll replace the rope with a leather strap.


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## Latestarter (Mar 3, 2018)

That's a nice barn you got here.


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## Jeanne Sheridan (Mar 3, 2018)

Latestarter said:


> That's a nice barn you got here.


We love it. The ground floor is divided in 3 with the east and west sides having concrete floors and smaller doors with access to the barn yard and pasture behind. We built dividers on those sides to bring our goats in at night in winter. We built feeders along the dividing wall but had to go back and add the vetical slats you see in the picture above them because without them the goats kept working our ways to climb over the feeds and the wall. The two main lofts are 10 feet up and run over the two side with concrete floor. Between those two on either end and 4' higher there are two more lofts, leaving about 15' square in the middle open all the way to the ceiling.  There is a rail system up in the peak of the barn but it's so high we have no way to access it to see if it's recoverable.


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## Bruce (Mar 3, 2018)

You just need a really long ladder! Clearly whoever built the barn had one


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## greybeard (Mar 6, 2018)

Bruce said:


> I do have to wonder why people would make huge bottom hinged doors. That is a lot of weight to lift and the leverage needed when it is all the way down is substantial. I guess one reason is you don't have to worry about the wind blowing it shut.
> 
> How are the big side hinged doors opened and closed? Obviously you can't lean out the opening to reach the edge of the door to "latch" or pull it back closed.





mystang89 said:


> I wandered the exact same thing but i figured they new better than me. In all honesty though I really can't think of a single reason why you would prefer the top down to the side open.


Lots of reasons for making the door hinge on the bottom.
1. It gets the door  completely out of the way when loading or unloading.
2. As stated, you don't have to worry about the wind blowing it shut or finding a way to hold the 2 halves of side opening doors open.
 but...the primary reasoning was pretty simple.
3. These barns were built to last 100 years, including the loft doors, and their attaching hardware...hinges and hinge fasteners.
When you install any door hinged on the sides, the stress on the hinge fasteners is completely different and much increased than on a bottom hinged door.
a. For a side opening door, (even if it is two 1/2 doors), the weight of (each door or) one big door for an opening this size would be significant. With the door standing wide open, the probability of the hinge fasteners pulling out of the beam that the door is attached to is very high. The door's weight is like a big crowbar pulling outward on the fasteners.
b. For a bottom opening door, the only stress the hinge and it's fasteners 'sees' is shear.  The force needed to shear off a set of 1/4 nails or screws is a lot, even if the single big door weighs 200lbs or more. According to Simpson joist hanger chart, the shear strength of even a single 20d nail is close to 235lbs, so you can visualize just how much a set of fasteners holding a bottom opening door would be able to handle, decade after decade. The only time the hinge fasteners see any kind of stress other than shear might be  the short time the door is being swung open or closed and that's just for a few seconds each time, as opposed to a side opening door being open perpendicular to the face of the barn for hours at a time while hay is being loaded and unloaded.


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## mystang89 (Mar 6, 2018)

That makes since. I've noticed many of the side doors on the barn starting to hand crooked. It's a pain trying to fix those.

Anyone have a barn pulley they feel like throwing my way lol


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## greybeard (Mar 6, 2018)

mystang89 said:


> Anyone have a barn pulley they feel like throwing my way lol


You can buy the whole thing relatively cheap...
http://www.timelesslumber.com/barnwood/trolleys.html


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## mystang89 (Apr 5, 2018)

Ok, so we were successful in closing the door but there were some links. One of the wood pulleys I have has small part of it's top side missing but it's enough to cause the rope to jump the side. I've thought about making the groove in the wood were the rope is supposed to run deeper but I'm not certain that will fix the problem.

There was another problem with the middle pulley from the pulley assembly not releasing when it got to the flanges on the end of the track. Still working on figuring that one out BUT progress. When I get it completely functional I'll take a video.


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## Bruce (Apr 5, 2018)

Maybe there is some way to fill in the missing part of the wood pulley?
Is the one that isn't releasing doing that because of friction or is something maybe bent a bit so something isn't getting tripped?


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## mystang89 (Apr 7, 2018)

Finally got around to taking a video of the system I have going.  Please excuse the blurry mess but it gets the point across.  Also, the successful run that you see was run number 3...or 4, can't remember which.  Run number two (or 3) ended with me pulling the rope clean out of the pulley assembly.  I'm very grateful that happened and the rope didn't snap.  When the door was being pulled shut, the middle pulley's rope was twisted as it entered the pulley assembly.  This prevented it from being seated properly in the assembly which then means the springs that were holding fast to the flanges did not disengage as they should have.  After fixing that problem, and probably more besides, we had the successful run that you see.


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## Latestarter (Apr 8, 2018)

Loved the "cheer" at the end of the 2nd vid.  Very nice! Glad you got it all worked out. Now if you can get the carriage to roll down the rail, you can use the system to lift hay to the loft for storage.


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## Bruce (Apr 8, 2018)

Are a few constructive comments OK??

I didn't see a fairlead block at tractor hitch level outside the barn between the pulley inside and the tractor.
Does the block at the door end swivel? If not, a swivel would be good, or at least untwist the rope before you pull.
You could use a fairlead below the top pulley in the rear going to the one at the door. That would make the rope run through the upper block easier.
If the rope is jumping the block, it is because it is too small a diameter. Rope 150 years ago was thicker for a given breaking strength. Certainly it shouldn't be able to get stuck between the block and the cheek.


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## mystang89 (Apr 8, 2018)

The carriage can do that but I'm missing the hay fork and that costs a bit more than I'm willing to spend, though it sure would be nice addition. As it stands, I'll probably just put the bakes in the bucket of the tractor and lift them into the hay loft like that lol.


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## Bruce (Apr 8, 2018)

You could probably rig up a lifting harness that hooked to the baling wire/string and pull the bales up one at a time. Of course that would be slow, they didn't have tractors with FELs back when that barn was built


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## mystang89 (Apr 8, 2018)

Lol, blending the old with the newThat should be the motto here haha


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## Bayleaf Meadows (Jul 12, 2018)

Just saw this video and thought of your barn- 


	
	






__ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10156526557688156


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## Alibo (Jul 12, 2018)

1. That is just amazing
2. I hope my kids are that helpful when they are older!
3. This may be a stupid question, but is there any benefit to baleing the hay other than the convenience factor? Better nutritional preservation? Less fire risk?


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## Bruce (Jul 12, 2018)

Bayleaf Meadows said:


> Just saw this video and thought of your barn-


Awesome find @Bayleaf Meadows! 

There is one of those "hay picker upper thingies" used as a decoration at a property we drive by. Neighbor across the road has a horse drawn sickle bar mower also decorative. 
I would think some sides on that wagon would make collecting the hay easier.


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## mystang89 (Jul 12, 2018)

Thanks for posting that @Bayleaf Meadows !  I would definitely love to have that bailer and the forks they used!  As it stands I'll be putting the hay into the front loader on the tractor and raising it up to the loft for someone to pull out.  Thanks again!


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