New 40x64' Pole Barn (sort of)

   / New 40x64' Pole Barn (sort of) #1  

GManBart

Elite Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2012
Messages
4,967
Location
Detroit, Michigan
Tractor
Massey Ferguson 241, Kubota SVL90-2
Well, it's been a couple of years in getting here, but I finally have a working barn/shop! It's kind of a long story, so feel free to jump ahead to the pictures...lol. The basics are that it's 40x64', with two 18x12' overhead doors on the front, and one 12x10' overhead door on each end. There is a 12' overhang on the back, and there are service doors near the front two corners, and in the back. My hope was to limit shuffling equipment by having enough doors to hopefully always get to what I need without much hassle.

So, here's how the timeline went:

We bought our current house in July of 2009, and knew we wanted you put up an outbuilding, but spent a lot of time/money doing a remodel, and getting more urgent things done. We were also waiting to buy the two properties to the east of us. The farther one was completely dilapidated, and had been vacant for several years. Vandals had stolen all of the copper, and obviously used it as a crash pad a few times...they even broke through the living room floor to get light down into the crawl space when they were stealing copper wire.

The closer house was still occupied, but the owner had stopped paying the mortgage, and taxes, even though she had a renter in it...nice huh?

The farther property came up for auction first, so we got that one ($20K for 5 acres with the shell of a house on it). One of my neighbors does construction on the side (also drives a big rig), so he did the demo of that house, and then I spent weeks clearing garbage from the property. The owner apparently didn't pay for trash pickup, and simply piled up garbage in the woods, and in holes dug on the property. I filled up a 20yd dumpster, then a 30yd dumpster with all of the garbage! We've planted some fruit trees on that property, and have plans for a bit more variety as we get time.

Eventually, we learned that the bank was ready to foreclose on the closer house, so we called them and told them we wanted to buy it "as is, cash offer". The renter was obviously upset about paying rent, and then getting kicked out, so she kept us in the loop during the whole process. The renter left right after running out of propane, and let us know she was leaving. A month after that, the bank finalized foreclosure, and called us. We did some research and knew that they were owed about $50K based upon an earlier sheriff's auction listing for it. They told use they were planning on fixing it up a little, and putting it on the market for $75K, hoping to get $65K. We made an offer a bit over $50K, and they accepted....a few weeks later we closed.

This is where it got a bit tricky. This house was still livable (although it was pretty nasty), had city water, and a septic system that was only 9yrs old. I wanted to keep both of those for the barn, for a number of reasons.

One problem we ran into was that a local ordnance prevents you from having an outbuilding on a lot without a primary structure. In other words, if I knocked the house down, I couldn't put the barn up. The other problem was that you can't combine properties with more than one primary structure. So, I had to knock the house down, legally combine the two properties, then get the building permit for the barn. Needless to say, this wasn't a fast process.

Now back to the septic, and water. I had to get the county to give me a waiver to keep the septic, because normally, they require an open hole inspection after demolition showing that you removed the tank. They came out, inspected the field, and determined it was in excellent shape, so they granted the waiver. I also had to get a different township to work with me, because they provide the city water. Normally, for demolition, they charge you $850 to sever the line, and if you want to hook up again, they charge you a boatload of money for a new tap (thousands) I got them to agree to sever, then reconnect for "only" $850 for each event. That's expensive, but a fraction of paying for a new water tap. My argument was that the tap was already in place, and they wouldn't have to run new lines, etc. I also managed to get the bank to pay an overdue bill from when they owned the property, so that greased the skids a little bit.

At this point, I had a demo permit in hand, and the same neighbor did the demolition on the second house. It was a manufactured home/trailer type, with a huge crawl space underneath spanned by some really nice 24' long 8" steel beams (beams came in handy later). The crawl space turned out to be a bit of a problem in the long run. Because of how the lot was graded, and the deep crawl space, it meant we couldn't put poles in easily and couldn't do a trench footing (can't backfill, then dig a trench, as it will collapse). Two different builders looked at it, and said the same thing...it was going to have to be a formed foundation. I actually like that a lot better than putting poles in the ground, but it certainly increases the cost when you start adding all the extra concrete!

We (me, same neighbor that did the demo, and another who's done a bunch of work with him) dug through some really nasty fill that was put down before the old house had been built, got to virgin sand, added more clean sand, compacted, and then the neighbor that did the demo brought in his basement concrete forms, and we went to work. He does a lot of basements, so we turned his 4x8' forms sideways, and poured a 12" thick 48" tall foundation. We got the backfill done, then set to work on preparations for the concrete slab on one side of the building.

The plan is to eventually have a concrete slab for the whole building, but we were racing the weather, so I decided to only pour the part of the slab that I plan to heat (radiant). That part I'm calling the shop, and it's 24x40'. We put down plumbing for a complete bathroom, with toilet, sink, and an extra large shower. I wanted the shower for when I'm really dirty, and don't want to track it into the house, but also so we can give our large dogs baths easily. For that reason, we also put a nice center drain in the floor...big dogs, water, you get the picture! I will ultimately build a dividing wall between the shop, and the 40x40 barn side, and put a tall overhead door in it so that I can move machines in and out of the shop without going outside. I'm also going to put a ceiling up (8') on half of the shop, so that I have roughly 4' of storage space over the shop, that I can get to from the barn side. We put down 2" R10 insulation, got the Pex tubes in place, did a pressure test on the system, and ordered some 3,500psi concrete with fiber mesh, and added heavy gauge wire sheets as we poured the concrete. We did a bit more backfill, and then handed it off to my builder. I decided to go with 4x6 posts (6x6 on the corners) set in Sturdi Wall brackets from Perma-column. they're not cheap, but I know they saved the builder time, and that was one of my concerns. The overhead door guys just left on Friday, and I finally have a useable barn!

You'll note the gap below three of the overhead doors, and that's because I'm planning concrete aprons all around, but have to wait for next year, and better weather....along with the rest of the slab. For now, I'm going to fill under the doors with gravel, and add some inside the barn side as well, to keep the dust down. Before the builder started I filled the one door gap with gravel so he could get his machines in and out, so it looks different.

Anyway, there's a lot more to do, and a lot more pictures to come, but I'll post a couple for now, and the link to the Photobucket gallery where you can scroll through all of the pics showing the progress. My wife has better pictures of the original house, but I have yet to get them from her, so I used and earlier picture showing a pile of scrap steel in front of it to give you an idea.

Did I mention it was nasty....the pile of steel probably smelled better!



The view from our yard.....the driveway will eventually extend to the building through this gap in the trees.



Found a use for some of the steel beams we saved (not the header beam).



Ready for concrete!



Looks like a building!



Waiting for some doors....and for someone to clean out the construction debris.



Just a couple of small overhead doors short!



The last door has been hung (this is also the same view from our yard as the second picture).



This is how you keep your LS and Massey from having a Lassey!



Here's the full album:
Barn Photos by G-ManBart | Photobucket
 
   / New 40x64' Pole Barn (sort of) #2  
Looks like you did a great job!
 
   / New 40x64' Pole Barn (sort of) #3  
Nice! The building looks super, last pics I saw were from about 3/4 done.

What a story properties often have. You have your own suburban renewal thing going on there. Good on you!
 
   / New 40x64' Pole Barn (sort of) #4  
Wow, awesome project! I sympathize with all the permitting and approvals you had to deal with. That takes perseverance and patience.

Question: how do the sturdy-wall brackets attach to the foundation? Are they shot in with a stud-driver?


Two comments:

1) do whatever you can to seal under the doors where the apron will go. We waited about 3 months to pour our garage apron and parking area, and I had pushed #57 gravel (also used for the base under the garage floor slab, so we had it on hand) into the gap under the doors to allow driving in/out. It was fairly tight, but mice and other critters turned it into a highway pretty quick, and they got into everything. I am sure they can still get in regardless, but when it's such a big easy gap to squirm through, it seems they come and go in droves. The problem went away instantly after we poured the apron and were able to get a good tight seal under the doors. If I had to do a temporary ramp again, I'd first put down a landscape timber so the door bottom gasket could seal against it, and then pack it tight with crusher run or some clay that would setup hard.

2) any concerns about moisture coming up through the dirt floor and getting trapped in the building? I almost wonder if you should put down some sort of temporary vapor barrier.

Anyhow, great work, and thanks for the writeup and pictures. I need to start on my barn soon!
 
   / New 40x64' Pole Barn (sort of) #5  
Looks great. What a frustrating process it can be, though in the end it ends up worth it.
 
   / New 40x64' Pole Barn (sort of)
  • Thread Starter
#6  
Wow, awesome project! I sympathize with all the permitting and approvals you had to deal with. That takes perseverance and patience.

Question: how do the sturdy-wall brackets attach to the foundation? Are they shot in with a stud-driver?


Two comments:

1) do whatever you can to seal under the doors where the apron will go. We waited about 3 months to pour our garage apron and parking area, and I had pushed #57 gravel (also used for the base under the garage floor slab, so we had it on hand) into the gap under the doors to allow driving in/out. It was fairly tight, but mice and other critters turned it into a highway pretty quick, and they got into everything. I am sure they can still get in regardless, but when it's such a big easy gap to squirm through, it seems they come and go in droves. The problem went away instantly after we poured the apron and were able to get a good tight seal under the doors. If I had to do a temporary ramp again, I'd first put down a landscape timber so the door bottom gasket could seal against it, and then pack it tight with crusher run or some clay that would setup hard.

2) any concerns about moisture coming up through the dirt floor and getting trapped in the building? I almost wonder if you should put down some sort of temporary vapor barrier.

Anyhow, great work, and thanks for the writeup and pictures. I need to start on my barn soon!

Thanks, it's been fun, but challenging!

The Sturdi-wall brackets are bolted in with a large diameter tapcon (various brands) that is 5/8" by 6". Depending on which brand you use (I got mine at Lowes) will change the hole diameter you drill, but mine needed 1/2" holes. The holes for the tapcons are slotted, so you can drill the holes, place the bracket, partially tighten the bolts, install the pole, then tighten the tapcons when everything is lined up. The pole is held to the bracket with two 1/2" grade 5 bolts, which need to be galvanized since they're in treated lumber (hard to find untreated 4x6" poles here), and two 3" screws that I think were 1/4" diameter...also treated/coated. I think my builder was initially skeptical of the brackets, but after he got the back wall up, he mentioned out strong it was, and that it didn't move. When he was done he commented again how strong he felt it was, and he's been building pole barns for decades....hopefully he's right!

Thanks for the tip on the door seals. I was planning to do something along the lines of what you suggested. A 4x6 fills the gap pretty well, so I was going to tapcon one down the full width of each door, then build up gravel on either side. I planned on bringing more gravel in to level the floor, sort of like you did, so it would be easy to do at the same time.

I'm not too worried about moisture at this point, especially because the eaves to the back overhang are still open. I'm undecided how I'm going to seal those off to keep birds, etc out, but I was thinking of something like a ventilated soffit that would allow moisture to escape. I do have a pretty big roll of vapor barrier left from the smaller slab, so I guess I could put that down before I add the gravel...won't hurt anything.

It's going to be a long project, but at the very least I've got my stuff out of the weather, so the pressing part is over. I actually think some of the stuff coming up will be the more fun part...building walls, running the electric, etc. We'll see!
 
   / New 40x64' Pole Barn (sort of)
  • Thread Starter
#7  
You have your own suburban renewal thing going on there. Good on you!

How true! We're really out in the country, so a lot of this property was owned by one family and they gave parcels to the kids. Many of them didn't want to stay out here, and the lack of interest showed in what happened. With the two neighbors who helped me with the build, we own 7 of the lots (5-10 acres), and have our eyes on the last couple to pretty much clean up this whole section. I figure/hope it has to increase our property value by getting rid of the ugly places!
 
   / New 40x64' Pole Barn (sort of)
  • Thread Starter
#8  
What a frustrating process it can be, though in the end it ends up worth it.

Very true! I'm pretty sure that building inspectors are programmed to say "you can't do that" before they actually listen to your question :laughing:
 
   / New 40x64' Pole Barn (sort of)
  • Thread Starter
#9  
Some updates....got power run to the building, put concrete on the barn side, built a partition wall, insulated the ceiling on the shop side, put up lighting on both sides, installed outside GFCI outlets on three sides, and I'm getting ready to start framing out the bathroom on the shop side. You can see the drain PVC on the far left in the third picture. After the bathroom is framed out, I'll start on the radian heat system. The entire system will go in a closet that will be on one of the bathroom walls.








 
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   / New 40x64' Pole Barn (sort of) #10  
Looking good, I'm hoping to get my 40 x 80 started in about a month , fixing to start dirt work next week.
 
 
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