Another Pole Barn

[Neuropel]

I want to construct a 74'x40' pole barn/workshop in Western PA, about an hour north of Pittsburgh. I live
near the Amish, and I have checked out many of their barns in the area
which are beautiful hemlock sided buildings with gambrel roofs. One of
these buildings will perfectly suit my needs, and I have now found an
Amish builder willing to construct the barn. I also have ordered the
green hemlock lumber from a nearby Amish lumber yard that produces
beautiful 1"x12" hemlock board and batten siding. The barn/workshop I'm building will have a complete second floor for hay storage (thanks to the gambrel roof design). First floor height will be 10'. The building will have 4 rows of posts (the perimeter row plus two inner rows for attaching stall walls and floor joists for the second floor). My current plans call
for 50 or so 6"x6" posts that will need to be set. The typical
construction has posts set into the ground, which bothers me somewhat especially given the new methods used in pressure treated lumber. I've seen things like permacolumn and
post protector that look promising but pricey (Permacolumns run between $75-$80 each, plus the shipping will be expensive since they weigh about 120# each. Post Protectors are $40 each, plus the cost of the treated posts which will add an additional $40 per post. I've also read and seen plans where concrete piles are
poured in the ground, and the posts are then set into a metal bracket
"foot" bolted onto the pile. This seems ideal for my situation but I have several questions. I have a tractor with a post hole digger, and was planning to purchase a 12" auger to dig the holes, and I suspect I could go down nearly 4 feet.
I was reading another thread here and saw the mention of "Hilti Bolts", which seem like an ideal solution for me since I could drill and pour the piers ahead of time and then drill the holes and set the bolts and hardware for each post as needed. It's unrealistic to think I would be able to accurately set all the hardware in wet piers, hence my dilema. The spans for my posts vary, but the maximum is around 10'.
Would I be ok to just put some rebar in the holes and pour the piers, and use the hilti bolt solution?
Also, I'd like to pour the floor for the workshop portion and the middle aisle of the barn after the building is erected (mainly due to the cruddy weather we have in Western PA. Are there any glaring problems with my plan?

Sorry about the message length...I just want to plan this so that I
don't have to rebuild my barn in 30 years. I figure a little planning
now might be worth a lot later.
Thanks
T. Kirby
Spring Church, PA

 

[drm]

Kirby,

I am also looking into building a pole building in western PA. Unfortunately I ma not nearly as far along but I can shed some light on your foundation issue.

If you are going to use concrete piers, definitely go with larger piers, I like at least 18”, 24” is better, and use reinforcing. This will provide room for misalignment and will not create any undue eccentricity on the pier. Some will disagree but when you look at the role the foundation plays and the percentage of additional cost it is justified in my opinion.

The standard Simpson type of bracket will not provide any lateral stability that you would have with poles embedded in the ground. You can easily have some brackets fabricated by a local steel fab shop. They need to be able to hold the post laterally and provide some moment resistance.

With the new PA Building Code you will need to get a building permit, drawings, inspections, etc. Check with your local building department. Here there were no requirements prior to July 04 but now they want it all.

Good luck and I would be interested in the contractor and lumber yard you are going to use. Please PM me if you would.

…Derek

 

[woodlot]

Have you seen these brackets? pole barn brackets
I'm impressed with the web site and would like to know what you might think about this system.

 

[Neuropel]

I did see those, and they look very well built. Don't know of anyone that's used them however.

 

[slydog]

Thats a great idea! Would really simplify building a small pole barn quickly and add more room without the trusses. I may have to look into that. Thanks for the link.

 

[George_W]

Hey guys I just purchased the components of that system (elbows and brackets etc.) for a 28x40 barn I'm building in NC. I'm planning on starting it this spring and will take pic's when it gets underway. I'm going to have 14' high walls and steel beams across the back half of it to build a loft over. I have to build under hurricane code...130mph winds so the poles (8x8) are going in the sand 8'. The building inspector and a couple of contractors I showed the components to were intrigued by the concept. Hand drawn plans flew right thru approval process at the inspectors office. I have the elbows and brackets in hand...they are some heavy suckers @ 75lbs each. Hopefully I'll have a progress report in a few months.

 

[unclroy]

George,

At 75 lbs, I'm curious how much those puppies cost>

Roy

 

[George_W]

I had custom elbows made that will support a timber between the peak of each roof elbow so they were a little more (weight and costwise) than the standard elbow. I think they averaged about $75 a piece. I have 22 elbows total, 4 steel I-beam brackets, 160 purlin clips, 150 lag bolts, 20 eve nailers (to attach the top band board), and 900 odd hex head purlin screws for just under $1800. $2100 delivered. The two shrink wrapped pallets dropped the bed of my F-250 about 3-4" from normal and were a bear to unload piece-by-heavy-a$$-piece, all by my lonesome. That price was back in November...I know steel went up since then. The price to me was cheap when you consider all the benefits, especially the clear span. I'm not looking forward to buying the two 16"x28' steel I-beams. The price was about $900 ea. back in Nov. The 28' I-beam will span the whole width of the garage and be unsupported in the center. Hopefully, all of the clear span storage space I gain above the main garage will help soothe the pain.

 

[Neuropel]

UPDATE...
After some discussion here (and in YAPB thread) on wooden poles versus metal poles versus permacolumns, etc., I finally made some progress. As you may have read above, the Amish will be building my barn. Well, low and behold, I was referred to another Amish fellow that lays block (for half the price of local contractors, and he does great work!), so I'll now be able to have a real foundation for my barn. The current plan is to pour 1.5' deep footers, and then lay 6 courses or so of block to get me about two feet above ground, then go with the pole barn up from there (attach poles to plates on the top of the block foundation).
Here are some of my newest questions:
I found the water line that went to an old bank barn that was taken down several years ago. I suspected there was one there somewhere since I had found a turn-off for it in my basement (tee fitting on the line coming into the house from the well). Is it ok to run this through a hole in the foundation, and if so, are there any tricks? It's black plastic pipe, so I'm wondering if I should couple it to some other type of pipe? I need the water line in an opposite corner of the barn from where it is located currently. Would it be ok to run the water line alongside the bottom course of block (on top of the footer) or is this typically too close to the surface (probably around 2 feet deep)?
Another question regarding french drains. Does anyone foresee any problems if I lay perforated PVC pipe on the footer outside the block (same region as I described running the water pipe) and cover with gravel to keep water from entering the building? I will be coating the exterior surface of the block with "B-Bond", but I'd like to be able to channel water away from the foundation. I've never done any french drains, so any advice would be great.
Thanks! (and sorry for the length of the post).
Todd Kirby

 

[Neuropel]

I've made a lot of progress on my barn, and decided to document the whole process on the web. You can find photos of the whole thing at www.irishjumpersandhunters.com/barnphotos/index.html. I'll be updating it with more photos in the coming weeks as I make further progress. Because of the wet weather here in western PA, we decided to build it using temporary posts to get it under roof so that we could pour the floor in the dry. It actually worked pretty well. It's 40x74 and has two floors. The main floor is the stall area and has 10' ceilings. The second floor ceiling is nearly 17' high so it'll hold a lot of hay or whatever else I need to put in there. For the permanent posts, I used oak and hickory 6x6s. The middle support posts that make up the stall walls are sitting on 18" concrete piers, with varying depths (around 32" or so for most of them, but some were sitting on such huge boulders that we left them shallow. From the ground up, I reduced the diameter down to 8" piers for the posts to sit on. For those, I just used a section of sonotube for the above ground section and made the height even with the floor. Then before pouring the floor, I wrapped each pier with expansion joint. It actually turned out great and I didn't have to put my posts in the ground.

I can't remember how many loads of lumber I've hauled for this, but it's still not done. Suffice it to say that I made just a few trips with my 16' flat bed car hauler /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif. I'm now down to building stall walls and stall fronts, and will be using Larch that the local Amish guys are cutting. It looks like cedar, but at $0.37 per foot it's beautiful, especially after a run through my planer.

The roof is galvanized stuff, also from the Amish. It went on in sheets, sort of like Ondura, using similar gasketed and coated hardware. I haven't decided on insulation yet. I'm a little concerned about insulating too tightly since I plan on several hundred bales of hay in the loft and I don't want it to go moldy.

So, I want to say a big Thank You for everyone's advice here (not necessarily just in this thread but also in the other pole barn threads). It's been a long haul but I'm nearly there!

Todd K.