Built a New Home for my Tractor Today

s219 · Dec 24, 2019

BoylermanCT said:
I think he saw how much fill I am going to need to bring in. During the barn demolition they removed 6 20 yard truck loads of concrete and rocks. So I need to bring that back plus another 6+ loads to bring up the building site by 2' as the site slopes away from the driveway. The old barn had a step down floor, where the back half was 18" lower than the front half. I want the new barn to be all one level. Plus backfilling the holes is going to take a bit of dirt too. The holes were dug by the 70,000 lb excavator that did the demo, so each hole is about 4x4x4, so its not like backfilling a 12" diameter hole! I am OK with waiting until Spring. Not a fan of working in freezing weather.

The building inspector is also brand new to our town. I have worked with our old inspector quite a bit, but he just got a full time inspector job in a nearby city. He had been the part time inspector for 3 towns located within 45 minutes of each other, so he had a lot of travel as a result. I was disappointed to find out we had a new inspector. Figured it best to get on his good side since this was our first meeting.

Wow, those are some big post holes!! I am used to 12-16" holes.

For my first barn, I brought in fill and compacted it in 2-3" layers to build up the site and level it front to back (had about 18" drop). That was a project. For the addition I am building now, I am putting in the posts and framing, and then will bring in a few loads of #57 gravel to fill the inside of the barn and let it spill out the sides under the skirt boards (will form a natural angle like a pile of material). #57 self compacts. Once that is up to the desired grade, I'll bring in crusher-run to cover the #57 and pack that into place. I used this method on another barn and it worked very well (and made me appreciate the pole barn method even more, since it's one of the few methods you can backfill after the building is up).

I timed my barn addition for December/January to take advantage of cold weather so the work would be more comfortable, but aside from a cold snap about a week ago, it's been mild. It will hit the low 60s here over the weekend. That's on the high end of comfortable working weather for me. I may end up in short sleeves!

mapper · Dec 24, 2019

shooterdon said:
Around here, those shelters last 2-3 years. Good luck.

Anchor it really well, I had a similar Shelter Logic that I put in with better anchors than it came with, still wasn't enough. Wind storm picked it up and blew it over the top of my shop. It had been up about 6 months at that point. My neighbor has one that she staked down to a fare thee well, it is still standing but after 2 years she had to replace the roof fabric, the original fabric had become brittle and was deteriorating fast.