Two Pole Barns, one new and one to renovate

[Ranger Rick]

I have been reading the posts of everyone building barns and houses for a long time and and want to thank Motorseven, Obed, Bindian and BoFuller and others for motivating me to take on these projects by myself. Your projects are great.
I finally have broken ground for a new pole barn/workshop and equipment storage. As soon as I get this built I can move my stuff into it and start renovation on the old barn. It has been a slow process to get started. I started planning to build a new pole barn back in May when I had to submit my plans to the National Park Service. We happen to live in a historic district and the NPS holds the conservation easement that says that they have to approve any new construction. A royal pain. After a couple of months later they said ok. Then plans had to be submitted to the county. They reviewed them and said that I needed to submit a truss plan from the truss builder. Then more review and finally a building permit. This week I started leveling the top of the hill were I am going to build my pole barn. It will be 30 x 40 with room for me to have a workshop and store some equipment. I plan to have a 10 ft ceiling. Here are the pictures of the area.

 

[creekbend]

Beautiful property. Best wishes.

 

[Ranger Rick]

A couple of more pictures of the property and old barn
New barn pad site

 

[Ranger Rick]

This past week just before Hurricane Sandy came to this part of the country I managed to get my post holes dug and the concrete footings poured. I plan to get back this weekend and hope to find out that everything has survived the storm and then I can get to work putting up some posts. I have a question. I figure that I should set a couple of corner posts and then pull a string between them to keep the other post straight in line. Should I just brace them all straight and then come back and backfill all the holes once I am sure they are in the right place or just go down the line and keeping them straight as I go? I am looking forward to getting out of the ground any suggestions will be appreciated if it makes the job easier. Rick

 

[deezler]

I would hold off on most back filling until you are certain all posts are exactly where you want them to be, and plumb. Let the braces provide the rigidity until you're certain everything is perfect. Make sure to measure the diagonals to get it square!

I like the old barn, it looks great.

 

[PoleBarnGuru]

Hopefully the batter boards have been left in place. If so, run stringlines 1-1/2" past the building line from batter board to batter board. This allows for posts to be set by placing a block of 2x4 between the post and the stringline. Plumb and brace all of the columns, then pour premix around the posts. Once the premix has set, then all of the braces can be removed, making your building far sturdier, as well as easier to work around.

 

[Ranger Rick]

Yes I had the batter boards still in place so I took your suggestion and offset the string from the post. That worked well. I managed to get two corner post in this afternoon. It took awhile to figure out how best to move the bottom of the post to get it lined up straight where I needed it.

The tractor and forks with a piece of chain works well to move the post to the hole and hold it up until I got it braced.



Hopefully it will go faster tomorrow now that I have done a couple.

 

[OrangeToys]

Are you doing all the work yourself? Im anxious to see it. I'd like to build mine.

 

[Ranger Rick]

Are you doing all the work yourself? Im anxious to see it. I'd like to build mine.

Yes I am. It may not be as fast as having a crew of workers come in and do it all in 3 days but I have the satisfaction of having done it all. I will try to get some help setting the rafters though.

 

[crbr]

Thanks for the pictures