Cement floor heaving.

[Cat_Tap]

I doubt anything will improve this until it warms up but there are so many knowledgeable people on here so maybe there is a solution.

The cement floor near a couple of my doors has heaved up making it almost impossible to close the barn doors completely. One of the doors is sticking so much that the boards are becoming damaged and the door won’t close completely. I try to use those two doors as little as possible and use plastic bags to seal the gap.

I could move the horses by using another door but they always get a bit difficult to handle in this cold weather when I change anything in their routine, plus it increases the distance to their field. The boys I am dealing with are quite large and I am a little old senior who can’t afford to get hurt. Any ideas or solutions?

[PeteyPie]

Yikes! It sounds like the footings under that edge of your barn are not below the frost line, or ditto if you have a simple slab poured in the middle of a barn.

If you have poor drainage, if water is dripping off of the eaves in that area or pooling along the edge of the foundation, it might be saturating that area, freezing, and expanding, causing the floor to jack up.

I think the short-term solution is to grind down the high spot on your concrete or trim the bottom edge of the doors. If you cut down the doors, you could address any gaps with a good door sweep. Oh, one other idea: if you have sliding barn doors, is the top hangar for the door adjustable? I know nothing about this kind of roller except what I have encountered with closet doors in my home, so that may be a wacky idea. Oh, here’s another idea. You could replace your sliding doors with a roller door, like a garage door. I know Bluey swears by them.

The long-term solution is to correct that problem however you need to, which surely means getting rid of water/moisture anywhere near your door. This might mean installing gutters to direct water away, erecting a porch roof to keep snow off of the area around the door, digging out a trench along the edge and making sure the soil next to your foundation and touching your foundation is backfilled with NSF material (Non Frost Susceptible/inorganic/sandy gravel), installing french drains, or addressing a problem with manure or organic soil encroaching onto the apron area of the entrance to your barn.

[Mosey_2003]

In the short term I’d take a little off the bottoms of the doors. You could attach a rubber strip to keep out the drafts if that’s a big concern.

Sorry, don’t know how to fix the heaving

[gumtree]

You don’t say where you are located. Are you are experiencing extreme out of the ordinary prolonged cold temp? If so mostly likely this is caused by frost heaving. Water/moisture expands when it freezes. The deeper the ground freezes the more it expands. So even though it has not been a problem in past years it does become a problem with an odd prolong deep freeze. Especially when the winter weather had been a bit whacky like it has been here. Warms up, we got a lot rain, that turns to slush and then we went into a deep freeze. It is even more pronounced if pre-winter weather was wetter than usual so there was a lot more moisture in then ground when freezing weather set in. The more water in the ground, more expansion, frost heaving.

You didn’t say how old the building is and if it is a pole barn or built on a foundation. Barns aren’t as well built sometimes as houses. If it is new or old there could be some settling going on which could drop the entire wall/header in that part. It doesn’t have to drop much to effect a hinged door. If it is old some water damage may have occurred at some point. If a pole the poles may be starting to rot and drop a bit. This is something that a trained eye will be able to ascertain pretty quickly. It can be an easy fix or a big “can of worms”. If it corrects itself after warming up then most likely frost heaving.

If this is a “one off” or only happens occasionally do the best you can. Or as others have said, take the door off and cut down and or take a grinder with a mason wheel on it and shave down the pavement. A hand held circular saw with a mason wheel/blade will do the trick also.

My sliding loft doors have this problem from time to time. The roof has a gutter and water does not pool just gets sucked in from the surrounding open ground. But with sliding doors I can push them out enough to get the bottom clearance I need.

During prolong draught the opposite will happen. The ground contracts, drops, pavement cracks and even worse so do foundations.

[merrygoround]

For the first time in 20 years the swingigng doors to my indoor could barely swing open, too much ground heave.

Traffic has been light this year so that entrance hasn’t been used. But I’ll bet it has heaved this year.

I know concrete slabs can be lifted and leveled, so I imagine they can be lifted and lowered-next Spring! Talk to a mason.

Mean time, it would seem that like everything else in winter, you deal with it. Carry treats that are only delivered when the inmate gets to the right paddock.
That is a routine they learn fast.