When I was about 16 years of age (now 70) I had an uncle who operated a small machine shop out of a three car garage and wanted to expand. He purchased a small farm which had a barn on the property - A CHICkEN BARN! It had a loft and it as well as the first floor had had chickens in it for some years - YOUR GETTING THE PICTURE... Of course the first floor (ground level was concrete) and the second floor had a wood plank floor covered with a about 3 inches of concrete to protect the wood. All of this had about 3 inches of poo on it. My father was both a carpenter and at one time a commercial concrete foreman so he took the job to rebuild the barn for his brother and thus my involve- ment.The project involved scoping the poo into wheel barrows and on to augger which placed the somewhat dry poo onto the truck. We atb that time used face masks so as to not inhale the stuff as it was not healthy to do so, let alone smell it on June days. We had to wear boots, full length pants, long sleeve shirts and buttoned at the neck to keep the particles and dust off our botties. Poo came off the concrete easly but the acid in it made the concrete break down so that the floor was no longer smooth. Progressing to the second floor. We cleaned it only to find that the floor was in the same condition as the first. At this point, about the third day, I had lived in the chicken poop for so long and had it prity muck on every square inch of my clothes that I thought ,"What the hell!" and jumped from the loft door onto the dump truck which held the poo.
The job was not yet done. We power washed the second floor walls and rafters etc, oooo yes -- the floor, all of which had soom degree of poo on them. Now we dealt with wet poo which also dripped down into the first floor.
The next step for us was the second floor concrete, the fact that the floor had no wire mesh or rebar in it and was corroded by the poo meant that it could be easily broken up with sledge hammers and bars. After all of this debris was removed it revealed the wood floor.
Now we could address the first floor. You get the picture. Only after the place was complete- ly cleaned could the actual remodel be started. The poo did damage some of the timber, and floor planks but all in all it was still a sound structure.
