Another barn build

[hayden]

Actually it will be an equipment building to get all my treasures (junk, as my wife calls it) inside. Everything is still subject to change since I'm just getting started, but the current plan is for a steel building, probably from Worldwide Steel Buildings, 30' x 60', organized as five 12' wide bays with roll up doors. It will sit on frost walls and a slab as required by local practice and the structural needs of the building. It will be sited next to and parallel to an existing 48 x 60 barn that includes storage but is also my shop and office. The existing building is heated, but the new one will be cold and only have electricity for lighting and light power tools. No insulation, no water, just a protective shell. But I want it to be tight so mice can't get in. I am SOOO sick of mice taking up residence in my equipment, making a mess, and stinking it up to high heaven. So seams, corners, and doors all need to close without gaps. This has been a bit of a challenge with the existing building, almost exclusively around the overhead doors.

The toughest part is that I need to dig the building into a sloped grade. Flat space is a rarity where I am, and I want to keep the two buildings close together since I expect to be back and forth between them frequently It also makes getting power to it easier, plus road access, snow removal, etc. The digging part isn't too bad, but the rock and ledge is difficult. The long side of the building where the doors are will face the existing building and be at the same grade, and the opposite side will be about 5-6' below grade. This will make the concrete walls stepped, and will complicate the steel structure a bit, but so far Worldwide says they can do it.

At this point I'm just doing site work. I mostly wanted to convince myself that it can be excavated, which comes down to finding out how much rock and ledge is in the way and what it will take to remove it. Blasting is a possibility, but I'd like to avoid it.

The first step was clearing trees and brush, and digging a couple of test trenches to get a sense of how much soil there is before hitting rock. There is a lot of rock, but I concluded it was worth proceeding. You can see the existing building, and the new building will be at about the same grade. So you can get a sense of how much will be dug in. The piles of snow are remnant from snow blowing, and have all sorts of equipment buried in them, so I can't just plow them out of the way.

Stripping back the soil and lose rocks, you can start to get a sense of the slope that needs to go away.

Lots of rocks are coming out, along with some soil. But mostly rocks. As a size reference, the bucket is 3' wide and 3' high.

Everything is getting hauled out one dump trailer at a time.

This is one of several bigger rocks that I have dragged out. It's a bit hard to tell because of the dirt and snow around it as I drag it one end at a time, a foot at a time, off to it's new home. It's between 15 and 20 feet long, ave 2 feet thick, and ave 4 feet wide. My excavator struggled every step of the way.

 

[hayden]

After getting as much soil and rock out with the excavator bucket, it was time to start breaking up the remaining rock. In a few cases there were more of the giant rocks that I could wiggle with the excavator, but couldn't move more than that. For them the goal was to break them into smaller sizes so they could be moved. For others, it seemed like ledge that needs to be chipped away. And it's frequently hard to tell the difference. The really big rocks initially all seem like ledge, but after a while there is often movement of the whole thing, at which point you know it's a discrete rock than can be removed and it just becomes a matter of how to get it out. A 20 ton excavator sure would be nice for this, but alas, 8 tons will have to do.

And here is the site with a lot more rock removed, and the approximate footprint of the building marked off in red. It's pretty much on grade for the front half of the building, but still sloped up over the back half, with a max of about 2-3' of depth that still needs to be removed. The good news is that although I think it will take a while, I'm confident that I can get this all excavated without having to blast.

Over the week that I was working on this I was also also able to pick various implements and attachments out of the snow piles as they melted down, then flatten out the pile to finish melting off faster. In the last pictures they have finally all been moved elsewhere.

What I don't yet know is how much I will need to continue to excavate down for footings and frost walls, vs when I can stop and pour concrete over the ledge. If anyone has any experience with this I'm all ears. We have a deep frost line so the norm for buildings is a footing 3-4ft down, then a frost wall up to above grade. When we built the existing barn there were a number of areas where the footings and walls came up and over ledge making them much less than 4' deep, and none of that has been an issue after about 18 years.

Then in most cases the floor is poured inside the frost walls, but I have also occasionally seen it poured over the top of the frost walls. Since my frost walls will be much higher than the floor on three sides, I expect the only place we will pour over the walls is for the overhead door openings, but it might make sense to do it across the whole front of the building. I'll need to work all this out between the concrete guy and the building fabricator.

One thing I'd love to get some feedback on is the amount of space that I'm leaving between the two buildings. Right now I'm planning on 40' which I think provides comfortable turning space for getting into and out of the new bays that are 30' deep. More would probably be better, but it's all rock excavation and breaking to do that. It's tempting to consider narrowing the corridor to 35', but I don't think it will save me much work over what I have already done, and is something I will probably regret in the future. So for now 40' seems to be the magic number.

Any advice and experience is welcome....

 

[EddieWalker]

This is going to be a fun project to watch!!!! Everything about your land is totally different then where I live, and it's fun to see all the differences. Snow is one thing I don't have to deal with, but all those rocks is another. It's all red clay here, and we have to truck rock in from Oklahoma and Arkansas!!!

Do you save the rocks for landscaping?

 

[hayden]

This is going to be a fun project to watch!!!! Everything about your land is totally different then where I live, and it's fun to see all the differences. Snow is one thing I don't have to deal with, but all those rocks is another. It's all red clay here, and we have to truck rock in from Oklahoma and Arkansas!!!

Do you save the rocks for landscaping?

New England is cris-crossed with stone walls for a reason

Some I use to build walls. The boundary between the existing barn yard and where the new building will start (where I had my implements lined up in the snow piles) was a stone wall. Once the building is in place I will rebuild where the former wall intersects the new building. But that will be a small quantity. Most I am using as fill to expand another area of the barn yard. And some may just get left in the woods, or used for fill elsewhere. Moving it anywhere is very time consuming because I’m limited to a dump trailer.

My reaction is very similar when I see other builds in other parts of the country. Just digging down without hitting rocks is a foreign concept to me. I seldom can get down more than 3” without hitting bedrock, and that was my fear in this location. But enough of it is coming out that I’m confident I’ll be able to make it work using my excavator and hammer.

I also see builds that are just slabs on sand or gravel with the slab thickened up at load bearing points. That wouldn’t last here with freeze/thaw heaving. You have to go down below the frost line with footings, then build up to above ground level. That’s the only way to keep the building from moving. It’s an unfortunate time and dollar adder.

 

[EddieWalker]

All we need is a 12 inch deep footing to support a house. What's really crazy is that most houses never had the soil under it compacted. They just dump a load of red clay, spread it out so it's level, and start setting forms. I think your way of building is a lot better, but I like how much cheaper it is here to build.

It looks like you have a good collection of equipment to get it done. Not many people have a jackhammer for their excavator!!!!!

 

[hayden]

All we need is a 12 inch deep footing to support a house. What's really crazy is that most houses never had the soil under it compacted. They just dump a load of red clay, spread it out so it's level, and start setting forms. I think your way of building is a lot better, but I like how much cheaper it is here to build.

It looks like you have a good collection of equipment to get it done. Not many people have a jackhammer for their excavator!!!!!

If the buildings hold up as built in your area, then that’s what matters, right?

As for the hammer, I bought that a few years ago for a project, and have now used it many times since. Around here it’s a bit like having a trenching bucket . And for this project I got a 36” bucket for the bigger excavator to supplement the original 24”. It makes a huge difference when there is a lot of material to move. And all of it pays for itself quickly by not having to hire someone. Or at least that’s how I justify it.

I’m now mostly in planning and design mode to make foundation and building plans so I can finalize pricing, get a concrete guy lined up, and get the building ordered. With the stepped foundation and resulting irregular sided building, there are a lot of details to work out.

 

[hayden]

For anyone who has built a steel building on a concrete slab, how mouse proof is it, and what are the weak spots? With stick frame I have found garage door lower edge and corners to be the most challenging. I have never used roll up doors before so don’t know if they are easier or harder to get a tight seal.

 

[EddieWalker]

I haven't built one, but I've worked on a few and I've seen a few differences. The ones I like have a brick ledge on the foundation that they run the siding down to so there is no opening for anything to get up through the panels. I've also seen where it's wide open and anything that can fit in there, can get into the building. Snakes worry me more then mice!!!

I have a roll up door on my shop and insulated garage panels for my garage. When I build my "big" shop, I'm going to do the garage door panels. I think you get a lot better seal, and the insulation on the door makes it even better.

For me, the goal is to keep the heat out. Probably the opposite for you.

 

[hayden]

I haven't built one, but I've worked on a few and I've seen a few differences. The ones I like have a brick ledge on the foundation that they run the siding down to so there is no opening for anything to get up through the panels. I've also seen where it's wide open and anything that can fit in there, can get into the building. Snakes worry me more then mice!!!

I have a roll up door on my shop and insulated garage panels for my garage. When I build my "big" shop, I'm going to do the garage door panels. I think you get a lot better seal, and the insulation on the door makes it even better.

For me, the goal is to keep the heat out. Probably the opposite for you.

The Worldwide building do something that sounds similar to the brick ledge, but out of steel. It’s basically a Z shape like preformed flashing that hangs over the edge of the slab and the side panels sit tight against the horizontal part of the Z overhang. Not sure that description is very clear.

I have panel overhead doors on my current building, and I think have them sealing well now, though it took a bit of creative work to do it. What I don’t like is the headroom lost to the tracks and door when it’s open. The steel roof trusses provide a cathedral ceiling that I’d like to be able to use.

Have you ever seen panel garage door tracks that continue to go up before turning horizontal, rather than turning horizontal right away? I don’t mind having more limited height passing through the doorway, but I’d like to have max possible height once inside. This is why I have been thinking about roll up doors since they seem to accomplish that.

 

[EddieWalker]

I've seen pictures of it, but never in person. Usually, the opening for the door is as big as they can get it. The thickness of the header seems to be the perfect space for the door to make its turn to the ceiling.

The one picture that I'm thinking of, they did a double 45 from the top of the door, and then at the ceiling. It was so unique that I remember it.