Why barns painted red

It is what makes red paint red. It is really cheap. That is because it is really plentiful. And it is really plentiful because of nuclear fusion in dying stars.

Zunger explains: The only thing holding the star up was the energy of the fusion reactions. So as power levels go down, the star starts to shrink. And as it shrinks, the pressure goes up. The temperature goes up until suddenly it hits a temperature where a new reaction can get started. These new reactions give it a big burst of energy. But it starts to form heavier elements. And so the cycle gradually repeats.

The star reacts further and further up the periodic table. Originally, paint, sealants, and other building materials did not exist, and on the prairie frontiers far from big population centres and supply routes it could be difficult to get necessary materials.

It was up to farmers to create a solution to maintain and preserve their barns. Hundreds of years ago, barns were not even painted at all. To protect the bare wood, creative farmers used linseed oil derived from flaxseed plants and coated the wood with it in an effort to protect their barns from the elements. Over time, people experimented with different mixtures, often adding milk, lime, or turpentine in order to strengthen the oil and speed up the drying process.

In a stroke of insight, an inventive farmer whose name has been unfortunately forgotten by time! Since the iron oxide in rust is a deep reddish-orange, and plentiful in soils of the area, seeing barns with such colouring became a common sight on the prairies as the practice spread.

In the mid to late s, as paints began to be produced with chemical pigments, red paint was the most inexpensive to buy. Red was the color of favor until whitewash became cheaper, at which point white barns began to spring up.

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