Building a Shop

[Huskerplowboy]

You will need a steel tape.

Yep, picked one up last night. Kinda ticked at myself for not figuring out the problem earlier in the day. I'm going to blame the heat, just never clicked for an hour or more of measuring... And then the lightbulb came on!

 

[mjncad]

Fluke now has a couple of laser measuring tools out that look promising, especially the 416D.

416D and 411D Laser Distance Meters)

 

[Huskerplowboy]

Looks like that Fluke 416D is around $230. Wonder if it works as well as it sounds like it would...

I'm also about 90% sure most pole barn building crews don't try to be nearly as accurate as I'll tend to be. A guy I know had a 50x90 building put up and it was supposed to be a 5 working day job for the crew, have to imagine they didn't spend a whole lot of extra time dialing in the stringlines once they got "close enough"

 

[JayCat]

It's a barn....not a church!!

 

[dodge man]

I'm a land surveyor and yep, those cloth tapes will really stretch. Over 0.10' in 100 feet. Everything we do that requires accuracy, which building layout falls under, we use a steel tape that we call a "chain". Just about everything we do is in 10ths and 100ths of a foot and not in inches. That really confuses people when they first start out. For shorter distances, say less than 200 feet, a steel tape is more accurate than our electronic equipment. You should also correct if the tape is to hot or cold, it will shrink or grow to long. Thats more of a problem in the winter than the summer though.

I like your laser level rig. If you have ever been around alot of construction equipment, they use a similar rig when grading building pads. They do a great job.

 

[Huskerplowboy]

On a 40x30 building, how square is square enough would you say? With a steel tape, I'm confident I'll have 30' and 40' sides pretty darn close to accurate, but wonder about the diagonals and how close I'll need to get them dialed in before a person wouldn't really notice the error when hanging the tin and such, especially since the corrogated steel will flex some and may be less square than the building...

 

[Duffster]

, especially since the corrogated steel will flex some and may be less square than the building...

No, No, No

The steel doesn't really flex and you will see if you are out of square over an inch. This will be most visiable in the roof sheets.

Try to get the diagonals on the ground within a 1/2" and you should be good to go.

 

[dodge man]

I agree, getting the diagonals close is important. When we lay out a building, we use an instrument to turn 90 degree angles at the corners, but you can do just as good a job by getting the diagonals close. I would think 1/2 inch would work well for a building like you are putting up. It can take alot of going back and forth to get it just right. Concentrate on 3 of the corners and get them correct, then the fourth will be alot easier.

 

[Huskerplowboy]

Thanks for all the tips so far, I'm sure I'll have more questions as I go.

Fighting the weather at the moment. Rained 1.5" Tuesday and Tuesday night, big front heading this way today with predictions of up to 1" again tonight. Trying to watch the forecast for a couple of dry days to get a rental skid loader out there and drill the holes. Might give it a shot on Monday, still looks like the weekend will be clear enough to dry things out enough so they can get in to deliver the building materials Monday morning and also maybe I can get some work done that afternoon.

Picked up the 16 concrete footers last night, had Mendards order them in. They're 4" thick, octagons that are 14" across the flats, so slightly more surface area than the 14" round pads Cleary called out on the blueprints. Wouldn't have wanted to haul many more of them than that with a 1/2 ton pickup, since they didn't have much luck getting the pallet slid all the way forward in the box...

 

[datanull]

Picked up the 16 concrete footers last night, had Mendards order them in. They're 4" thick, octagons that are 14" across the flats,

Do these go in the bottom of the 4'(?) deep post holes and the posts sit on them?