One of the most important aspects of running a successful farm or agricultural business is wringing every last cent of value out of the land you possess. However, this doesn't just apply to the land on which you grow your crops or graze your livestock -- your farm's barns and buildings should also represent good value for money, and even their eventual demolitions should be as cost-effective as possible.
Tearing down an aged and decaying barn can be a laborious and expensive endeavour, but salvaging recyclable materials from your barn both before and after demolition can help you recoup a significant amount of your costs, and reclaiming valuable scrap metals from your barn is particularly worthwhile. Reputable scrap metal merchants will offer you good prices for a lot the scrap metal sources present in the average barn, and some will even collect and process your reclaimed metals at no cost to you. The following sources of scrap metal found in barns can be especially lucrative:
Metal roofing
Unless your barn is several decades old, it will almost certainly have a metal roof, and the durability of these roofing sheets means they are often in good enough condition to recycle as scrap metal even after years of constant exposure. Aluminium roofing is particularly valued, and will fetch high prices from merchants, but galvanised and painted steel roofing can also be sold on for reasonable rates if it has not been significantly damaged by corrosion.
If your barn is more modern, its metal roof may also be supported by metal roofing trusses made of structural steel. These can also be successfully recycled if they are not rusty.
Guttering
While many gutters and downspouts affixed to residential buildings are made of plastic, barns tend to be fitted with tougher gutters made from galvanised steel or aluminium. If reclaimed in reasonable condition, these can be sold as scrap for reasonable prices. If your barn's gutters lead to a water butt or rainwater collection tank, check the composition of the tank itself -- many are made from aluminium or stainless steel, which fetch excellent prices as scrap.
Water plumbing
If your barn has a water supply, even a very basic one only used to supply a single sink and tap, the pipes that feed water to your barn may well be made of copper, a particularly valuable scrap metal highly prized for it's immunity to corrosion. Barns that feature more extensive plumbing (such as barns used as feeding pens, milking pens or vehicle storage buildings) can throw up a lucrative haul of copper piping,
If you tear out your barn's interior walls to find it and only find worthless plastic plumbing, don't give up immediately, as older sections of piping may be made of copper and are often joined directly to newer sections made of plastic. You should also pa special attention to any hot water plumbing in your barn, such as boilers, as these often contain large amounts of valuable scrap