Barn Preservation & Repair

Barns have a special place at C&D Construction. These iconic structure dotted the countryside of northeast Iowa for nearly 200 years. However, with the decline in the number of family farms, there has been a decline in maintaining these classic buildings. 

    Until recently what was once thought to be obsolete and only good for kindling, is making a bit of a resurgence. People are taking a new look at the classic barns. Gathering places and event centers. Recreational spaces. Storage opportunities. Automotive shops. Work spaces. Man-caves. Even moving into them as homes! The classic barn is back!

    Barn repair is important to us and we know these buildings, inside and out. We've been in hundreds of them! We've cabled bowed walls, repaired beams, rebuilt collapsed walls, pulled, pushed, and pried in every direction to bring them back into shape. We've replaced and repaired entire foundations. And there's little we won't do to try and save them. 

    One of our favorite stories was a customer who wanted to save the barn that had belonged to his family for generations. His insurance company notified him that they would no-longer issue insurance on the building and recommended it to be demolished. He asked friends and neighbors for recommendations and even inspected some our our past work before calling C&D. We went to work repairing the major structural problems in the beams and foundation. New steel siding and roof with custom trim. Replaced the windows, built new doors and added a garage door. When we finished, he insisted that we take a picture of him standing next to his barn because it meant that much to him. He later told us that upon inspection, his insurance agent made the comment, "I'm going to have to take a lot of pictures, because my boss isn't going to believe me when I tell him that we are insuring this barn."