Barn to workshop

[EddieWalker]

Larry,

Looks great!!

How are you tying the beams, posts and footings together? Did you use rebar in the footings?

I was thinking that a piece of flat steel or angle iron tied into the rebar would make a very strong bracket to bolt the beam and posts together.

In California, a place I used to live, they are tying straps to the foundations that run up the exterior walls to the rafters. I haven't seen that done anywhere else, but it would work good in your application too. Not sure where you get the straps though.

Eddie

 

[Larstan]

Hey Harv,

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( But if those bags are eighty pounders as they appear to me each bag makes six tenths of a cubic foot of concrete. That means your net concrete is twenty one and a half cubic feet mixed and poured. There are twenty seven cubic feet to a yard. )</font>

The bags are 60lbs and .45 cubic ft. 48 to a pallet. I used 36 bags which I guess puts me at 2/3's of a yard. It felt like alot more /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif interesting since I thought the mixer was a 1/3 of a yard which is what I was basing my original estimate on.

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Dispensing it in a five gallon bucket will wear one slick. Even if one has the world's greatest front loader there are times when a good wheelbarrow is the only appropriate tool. I would highly recommend one in your circumstances. )</font>

Logistics is the key here, I have a 32ft wall and I set the mixer in the center and the pallet next to it. The run to the forms was max 15ft in either direction and filling the forms would have required filling the wheelbarrow moving to the form and shoveling back out into the form. I figured filling the bucket and pouring straight into the form was the least amount of up and down with the concrete. Mixing, moving and pouring by yourself is I'm sure quite and interesting show if you had an audience. Since I had never really poured concrete in any kind of volume before I was a little nervous about having it setup in between mixing new loads.

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow with a shovel is fifty percent effort and seventy percent skill if you're doing it right. If you're not accustomed to doing it the ratio is hundred and ten percent effort, ten percent skill. It's one of those things where a pro makes it look so very easy. I learned from the best, my father. )</font>

This was one of the 110 percent efforts, kind of sad really when you see those five little piers sticking out of the ground does'nt seem like nearly enough payoff for the effort /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif but as you put it so eloquently "ain't nothin but a thing" /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif thanks for your help......

 

[Larstan]

Hey Eddie,

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( How are you tying the beams, posts and footings together? Did you use rebar in the footings? )</font>

I have been looking at different brackets at 'Gold plated lumber Co.' my local lumber store /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif I found some T brackets that I think should tie the posts and beams together nicely and I am still pondering the attaching to the piers. No I did'nt rebar the footings, IMHO I think it is plenty strong enough. I am leaning towards slabbing it once I get the piers set with the slab coming flush to the height of the piers and surrounding them. That I will reinforce and it would take more load off the piers and spread it all the way across the base beams.

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( In California, a place I used to live, they are tying straps to the foundations that run up the exterior walls to the rafters. I haven't seen that done anywhere else, but it would work good in your application too. Not sure where you get the straps though.
)</font>

Just moved up here about a year and half ago from CA. anybody got any complaints about your local codes you aint seen nothin till you lived there. I've seen some of the setups for tying the houses to the foundation for the earthquake codes, I think just tying it to the piers at the base will be sufficiant. I have not felt the earth move since I have been here which has been a nice change /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Farwell]

Contact StrongTie or check their catalog. Home Depot may be able to special order them.
Farwell

 

[dummy]

<font color="blue"> In California, a place I used to live, they are tying straps to the foundations that run up the exterior walls to the rafters. </font> Lucky us, we are doing a very similar thing for wind resistance (hurricane). Load path inspections even cost extra. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif Simpson makes a couple different applications for this like strapping and strong-wall.

 

[dummy]

Picked up on this a little late, you're doing a heckuva job piecing that back together.

 

[Larstan]

Thanks, it has definitely been a learning experience. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif Sorry it took so long to reply.......

 

[Larstan]

I am finally getting around to an update, My wife and I just became foster parents for 2 little girls on the 11th of August. I thought I was tired before /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif Anyway this slowed down my progress a little /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif but I have been hacking away albeit slowly.

Here is the north wall with the forms pulled.

 

[Larstan]

Here is the south wall piers completed and far base beam replaced.

 

[Larstan]

I am getting to the point where I have to deal with the floor, so that meant clearing all my stuff out of the barnshop. That meant creating some kind of temporary shelter. I had 2 10x20 shelters that I had been using before but had trouble keeping on the ground due to winds. I found some 8' galvinized poles and drove them in to the ground and bolted the awnings to them. Then I cleared the barnshop out....

This is a kind of overall progress shot, one of the shelters is hidden behind the structure. I placed them close to access my tools and compressor.