Jake Harsha
New member
Hi all,
I recently finished my pole barn and thought I'd post it up to help anyone else who may be going down this road in the future. 40 x 28 x 10 with a 4:12 roof and 1 ft. overhangs on all sides. It's pretty basic except for the floor...I went with pavers. This would normally add a ton of labor expense to such a project, but since I did it all myself (would've needed pay a crew to do concrete) and I got a great deal on the pavers (and I had all the equipment to haul/spread/pack all of the foundation materials), it actually saved me quite a bit of money. I bought most of the materials for the project (including the pavers) at Menards during their periodic "11% off week" sales and doing all the work myself, the project came in under $8.50/square ft. including the floor and a class 5 driveway in front of the big door (no insulation/interior sheeting or electricity yet). Windows I got used from the local Habit for Humanity, but they were still in very good shape. ($150 total for six double-pane/Argon crank-out casement windows with screens...I certainly am not complaining.)
Here's the process:
Holes:
7/20/2013 To even get to this point we had to remove 5 large aspens, a birch and an oak, then grind the stumps, and then level/pack repeatedly with the skidsteer and a plate compactor. Digging the 4-1/2 ft. holes was easy (I just rented a Toro Dingo with a post hole auger). Getting them straight and perfect in the right locations took FOREVER.
Poles:
8/5/2013 Working in my extremely-limited spare time I could do about one or two a night. This took forever as well.
Floor:
8/31/2013 Laying pavers for the floor. Each paver was 16"x16"x2" and weighed in at 42 pounds. And there were almost 700 of them. (You do the math.) Before we could even do this we had to haul in and spread and pack 15 tons of crushed rock, then we'd spread/pack/screed/level an inch or two of washed sand (around 6 tons of it in the end) and lay the pavers a 5'x10' section at a time. Again, this took approximately FOREVER.
9/16/2013 Floor mostly done (still needed locking sand and sealant at this point). It may not look like much, but it took a LOT of nights and weekends plugging away at it to get this far.
This is the Celtic knot design I used to arrange the pavers on the floor. It's hard to see in the photos (and in real life) but this entailed an order of magnitude of extra work so I figured I'd mention it. The pads for the garage door and man door are located using 3/8" thick 2x2 angle iron, drilled and secured with foot-long landscaping spikes at 1-foot intervals. (I've driven the skidsteer in and out several times and nothing moves.) Everything else is held in by the grade board.
Frame:
9/21/2013 Girts, trusses, purlins and overhang jacks are on. (I had family and friends who came and helped with the trusses and purlins) I had also hauled/spread/packed around 10 tons of class 5 in front of the garage door entrance by this point, but you can only see a bit of it in this picture.
10/6/2013 Fascia boards, soffit nailers, and windows are in. The man door is one I had saved after removing it from my home during a remodel.
10/6/2013 View inside from the north...showing rat runs, knee braces, sway braces, wind braces, corner braces, etc. Pole frame buildings need lotsa braces.
Tin:
11/6/2013 I also had some family help with the tin. Here's the view from southwest. Basically as done as I'm going to make it for now. I will likely insulate it and run power out to it in the next year or two (I ran a couple of extension cords out there for now), but we are planning an addition to our home next spring, so for the time being it's just cold storage.
11/6/2013 View from the northeast. The garage door is a 10'x12' slider.
I come from a family of builders and worked construction with my dad for a while in college, but I'm no construction pro. I was able to do all of the dirt work, haul pavers and set the trusses using my skidsteer (I have both forks and a bucket and I made a 12-ft boom for the forks for truss-setting...worked great.)
I'm really happy with how the floor turned out. It's obviously not going to be as durable as concrete, but I console myself with the fact that I can easily fix any damage by just replacing a paver or two if it ever becomes necessary (and it looks unique and beautiful). I looked and looked online before building but found very little information on putting a paver floor in a pole barn. Hopefully this post will help the next guy...
I saved a bunch of money by doing everything myself, but if I had it to do all over again, I might just write the check...having the pros do it all in a week would've been a lot less stressful on my family. We have two kids (1 and 3) and it was really hard on my wife caring for them alone while I worked.
Thanks for looking,
Jake
I recently finished my pole barn and thought I'd post it up to help anyone else who may be going down this road in the future. 40 x 28 x 10 with a 4:12 roof and 1 ft. overhangs on all sides. It's pretty basic except for the floor...I went with pavers. This would normally add a ton of labor expense to such a project, but since I did it all myself (would've needed pay a crew to do concrete) and I got a great deal on the pavers (and I had all the equipment to haul/spread/pack all of the foundation materials), it actually saved me quite a bit of money. I bought most of the materials for the project (including the pavers) at Menards during their periodic "11% off week" sales and doing all the work myself, the project came in under $8.50/square ft. including the floor and a class 5 driveway in front of the big door (no insulation/interior sheeting or electricity yet). Windows I got used from the local Habit for Humanity, but they were still in very good shape. ($150 total for six double-pane/Argon crank-out casement windows with screens...I certainly am not complaining.)
Here's the process:
Holes:
7/20/2013 To even get to this point we had to remove 5 large aspens, a birch and an oak, then grind the stumps, and then level/pack repeatedly with the skidsteer and a plate compactor. Digging the 4-1/2 ft. holes was easy (I just rented a Toro Dingo with a post hole auger). Getting them straight and perfect in the right locations took FOREVER.
Poles:
8/5/2013 Working in my extremely-limited spare time I could do about one or two a night. This took forever as well.
Floor:
8/31/2013 Laying pavers for the floor. Each paver was 16"x16"x2" and weighed in at 42 pounds. And there were almost 700 of them. (You do the math.) Before we could even do this we had to haul in and spread and pack 15 tons of crushed rock, then we'd spread/pack/screed/level an inch or two of washed sand (around 6 tons of it in the end) and lay the pavers a 5'x10' section at a time. Again, this took approximately FOREVER.
9/16/2013 Floor mostly done (still needed locking sand and sealant at this point). It may not look like much, but it took a LOT of nights and weekends plugging away at it to get this far.
This is the Celtic knot design I used to arrange the pavers on the floor. It's hard to see in the photos (and in real life) but this entailed an order of magnitude of extra work so I figured I'd mention it. The pads for the garage door and man door are located using 3/8" thick 2x2 angle iron, drilled and secured with foot-long landscaping spikes at 1-foot intervals. (I've driven the skidsteer in and out several times and nothing moves.) Everything else is held in by the grade board.
Frame:
9/21/2013 Girts, trusses, purlins and overhang jacks are on. (I had family and friends who came and helped with the trusses and purlins) I had also hauled/spread/packed around 10 tons of class 5 in front of the garage door entrance by this point, but you can only see a bit of it in this picture.
10/6/2013 Fascia boards, soffit nailers, and windows are in. The man door is one I had saved after removing it from my home during a remodel.
10/6/2013 View inside from the north...showing rat runs, knee braces, sway braces, wind braces, corner braces, etc. Pole frame buildings need lotsa braces.
Tin:
11/6/2013 I also had some family help with the tin. Here's the view from southwest. Basically as done as I'm going to make it for now. I will likely insulate it and run power out to it in the next year or two (I ran a couple of extension cords out there for now), but we are planning an addition to our home next spring, so for the time being it's just cold storage.
11/6/2013 View from the northeast. The garage door is a 10'x12' slider.
I come from a family of builders and worked construction with my dad for a while in college, but I'm no construction pro. I was able to do all of the dirt work, haul pavers and set the trusses using my skidsteer (I have both forks and a bucket and I made a 12-ft boom for the forks for truss-setting...worked great.)
I'm really happy with how the floor turned out. It's obviously not going to be as durable as concrete, but I console myself with the fact that I can easily fix any damage by just replacing a paver or two if it ever becomes necessary (and it looks unique and beautiful). I looked and looked online before building but found very little information on putting a paver floor in a pole barn. Hopefully this post will help the next guy...
I saved a bunch of money by doing everything myself, but if I had it to do all over again, I might just write the check...having the pros do it all in a week would've been a lot less stressful on my family. We have two kids (1 and 3) and it was really hard on my wife caring for them alone while I worked.
Thanks for looking,
Jake
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