Frost, and heaving of post frame buildings

[BMod]

I have a 60'x135' post frame building in Central Wisconsin. I am in clay country, and frost goes deep here. The posts were put in about 4' 6" down, with a concrete doughnut placed below. I dug up around the building and put 4" of Styrofoam down, 1' wide below the bottom board thinking the frost was pushing up the bottom board, that did not work. Actually the styrofoam is about 2" below the board, with a piece of plastic nailed to both sides of the board to keep out the granite. So if the ground heaved it would cut into the styrofoam for 2" then go up.
So I think the frost is actually push or grabbing the posts and pushing the building up, but only on the North wall, or at least the north wall is the worst. Some posts move much more than others.
Do any of you have this problem? What can I do to fix the issue? The building contractor will not help, they claim it is my site and that they do not employ a soil tester, so I am out of luck, even though they have built many buildings in this area.
Right now I dig up the posts every other year, and remove the dirt from between the post and the concrete doughnut, and pound the post back down to close the the original height, but this is getting old fast.
Any help would be great. Thanks in advance........

 

[Craig Clayton]

I built my pole barn 32' x 60' all by myself. I did the 4'6" thing also. I have a slight movement of one post between the bay doors. This is on the EAST side middle of the building on the driveway side. Barn has been in 18+ years.

Slight means it only has caused the roof line to show the tiniest imperfection.

Do you have a cement floor or dirt or cement pad.?

Craig Clayton

 

[jdfire]

This will be the first winter with our new pole building. I'm a little nervous about the possibility of frost heaving. How much of a lift are you getting?

 

[BMod]

I have a 30x30 cement slab (shop) in the front corner, the rest of the shed is granite. My posts move around February time, my steel buckles. When it does I can stick my hand in between the sheets of steel in some spots, where it is bad. I have a few nail holes that are ripped over an inch long. I have two colors of steel on the walls (like wains coating), about 40" high of one color, then a trim piece, and then the other color, up to the 12' wall height, that trim piece the separates the two colors of tin is all bent up also.
It is weird as one post will move much more than the other. I have been thinking of digging up the post, drilling a hole in the post near the bottom, and then digging the hole deaper and pouring concrete about a 6' deap, kinda like pouring a foundation, like a parking lot light pole has but leaving it about 3' 6" below grade. Only problem with this idea is, if the pole moves, I will not be able to get it back down easily.
Other thought is to try putting 4" of foam around the poles, and greasing the poles first. Thinking here is frost will not be able to "grab" the poles then.
I have thought about heat tape also, but I don't like that idea........

 

[BMod]

I bet I get around 2" of lift each winter, but the posts go back down some in the spring......

 

[Depmandog]

Curious, have any of you dug down to see exactly how far down the frost is going?

I know with my barn, the posts are concreted in place. Poles are at 4' (deeper then Missouri frost), I have zero frost heave.

 

[BMod]

No way to dig, when the ground is frozen, I leave snow around the building, and this last winter, and this winter I put down blankets crews use to slow down frost, or keep fresh concrete warm, last year it did not seam to help at all.....

 

[Craig Clayton]

OK
You mentioned a few key words.

If you dug up each post one at a time and cut the post off at ground level and poured a concrete sono tube type down far enough with an elephant foot at the bottom. Then attach the 6x6 wood to a sill plate bracket.
Friends put up a large shed like this, and they have a building moving business. They build everthing BIG.
When I (spruced up ) my deck, building code take. I tore out 20 cement columns that were down 36" and I went down 6' 6" on the 4 new columns.
There has been no movement in 4 winters.
I poured a cement plug for my TV tower 36" round 4' plus deep. It has a 40' tower mounted on it and I have the parts to raise it to 56' this summer.

I will be over next Saturday to help ( wait let me check my calendar ,Sorry too busy ).

Craig Clayton

 

[BMod]

Not sure I want to cut any post. I was thinking the sonna tube type thing but making it go from about 6' deep up to 3' deep, keeping it about 3' below grade and roughly 2' or so in diameter. The post would be in the middle, with a rod through it to bond the post to the concrete....

I am not ready for help yet as the ground is froze here, but in a few months, I will take you up on that, lol...........

 

[Craig Clayton]

I know it is your building and all the experts will run away when things go wrong.
I work with a friend who wanted to build a glass roofed awning over his back deck.The glass roof was to be 7' out by 16' long on a 2 //12 pitch .
He has a chemistry degree which made it worse because he knew he was smarter than the average bear.
It took me 6 months of planning at many lunchs sitting on the computer all having fun to design 2 holes to support his awning.

He wanted easy
PT 4x4 = no
PT 6x6 with cement around = no
steel 3x3 thinwall cement around = no

So this went on for weeks, we even had some in the shop say they would come over and dig the job to shut us up.

So for everyone of his quickies I said PROVE IT with pictures and building code practices.

I FINALLY WON, poured sono tube cement deeper 3 pieces of rebar, footer ,4 1/2" bolts at 6" above ground level to a plate with 4"x4" steel tube by 12' tall.

I LOST ON the top plate he wanted to notch the tubing to hold the double 2" x 10" beam.
When he cut the tubing notchs the tube tops went BANANA because tubes are rolled and welded.

I consulted on half of his kitchen remodel that was contracted.
I consulted on the driveway interlocking that was contracted.

We are now debating motion sencing lights.

The biggest fun that comes up is that he says ( Ok you know the light at the front door), and I answer NO I have NEVER been to your house except on paper every lunch hour.

He failed the Emission Test P0300 ( random cross fire ) and curb idle high CO. I am changing his plugs on paper, egr , cat ,code reader.

It keeps me out of trouble at lunch time.

Do you serve LUNCH?

Craig Clayton

 

[RickB]

I know it is your building and all the experts will run away when things go wrong.
I work with a friend who wanted to build a glass roofed awning over his back deck.The glass roof was to be 7' out by 16' long on a 2 //12 pitch .
He has a chemistry degree which made it worse because he knew he was smarter than the average bear.
It took me 6 months of planning at many lunchs sitting on the computer all having fun to design 2 holes to support his awning.

He wanted easy
PT 4x4 = no
PT 6x6 with cement around = no
steel 3x3 thinwall cement around = no

So this went on for weeks, we even had some in the shop say they would come over and dig the job to shut us up.

So for everyone of his quickies I said PROVE IT with pictures and building code practices.

I FINALLY WON, poured sono tube cement deeper 3 pieces of rebar, footer ,4 1/2" bolts at 6" above ground level to a plate with 4"x4" steel tube by 12' tall.

I LOST ON the top plate he wanted to notch the tubing to hold the double 2" x 10" beam.
When he cut the tubing notchs the tube tops went BANANA because tubes are rolled and welded.

I consulted on half of his kitchen remodel that was contracted.
I consulted on the driveway interlocking that was contracted.

We are now debating motion sencing lights.

The biggest fun that comes up is that he says ( Ok you know the light at the front door), and I answer NO I have NEVER been to your house except on paper every lunch hour.

He failed the Emission Test P0300 ( random cross fire ) and curb idle high CO. I am changing his plugs on paper, egr , cat ,code reader.

It keeps me out of trouble at lunch time.

Do you serve LUNCH?

Craig Clayton

That's all well & good, but if you don't get below frost depth, ANYTHING will heave, period.

 

[Craig Clayton]

Hello RickB
You will notice that my desk columns are 6'6" deep.
I drilled my holes 5'4" before backfilling and then with grading and interlocking final grade the columns are 6'6" below grade.

It is hard on paper to make your friend dig a deep hole when they keep looking for the EASY BUTTON.

I was looking at the 3 PTH auger top link posts.
I have been playing with making a sliding drive extension on my 3 PTH. I have already made 2 extensions one 12" one 18". I should take some pics if there is any interseted members. These extensions are 2" schedule 40 pipe with a solid nose welded in. These are NOT HIGH TECH.

Craig Clayton

 

[Gizmo2]

Do we really think depth has a lot to do with the OP problem? I am not so sure.

 

[Egon]

For the OP: as stated the supports have to be set below frost level or the ground heated to prevent freezing. Probably easiest is to replace the the existing piles with ones that extend to below the frost line.:thumbsup:

Look up "Frost Heaves" on Google.

 

[BMod]

I am not so sure either. The building contractor/manu. says they only need to be in the ground 4' 6" to meet local codes? When I dig up a pole in the spring/summer, there is space and dirt between the concrete doughnut, and pole, up to 2 to 3 inches. That leads me to believe the pole is going up, but the concrete doughnut is staying put.
The building contractor/manu. says it is my site, nothing they are going to do. I told the guy his guys are suppose to be experts did they not see this coming and could have told me I need to do this or that. I hired them to build me a solid pole barn, not one that move up and down. If it was not going to work, I wish someone would have told me it would not work. The guy who came out to look at my building to see what was going on told me "if you wanted a pole building built here today, we would not build it, we would design you a building with a concrete foundation. That is all good and well, but what changed in the last 7 years? I think the ground is still the same, lol.
The contractor/manu. wants me to dig up the entire 135' wall, 1 1/2' on the inside, and 1 1/2' on the outside down to bottom of pole depth, and then backfill with non frost susceptible fill. And put in drain tile. Or put insulation (r-10 min.) in, 5' on the inside, and 5' on the outside, 1" down, the 135' of the building.
Once again would have not been too bad when the building was built, but now it would be a big mess, and I am not even sure these fixes would work?
I would rather do something that only involved digging by the poles. I still think the contractor/manu. are somewhat at fault here for not spotting the issue at the time of construction. That is why I hired someone to build it for me, and did not do it myself..........

 

[s219]

I think that expansive soil/clay could be as much an issue as the frost -- the clay is likely shrinking/swelling with water in conjunction with frost, and it will amplify the issue. If the issues vary from post to post or side to side, then it indicates differences in moisture content and would be characteristic of shrink/swell clay.

Around here, we'd deal with these sorts of issues by replacing the soil in the area of each footing, or buffering the footing from the surrounding soil. I have only done this in the context of foundation footings, and haven't thought about how I'd do it with pole barn piers. But I am set to build a pole barn in some shrink/swell clay that goes down about 40", so I will need to figure it out.

Offhand, I'd probably dig the holes extra wide and deep enough to poke through the clay layer into stable sand below, pour the pier in the middle, and then fill around the pier with compacted sand as a buffer. That way the clay soil can do its thing shrinking and swelling outside the hole, and the sand will buffer the pier. Sometimes the buffer can be a mix of sand and the original clay.

 

[RickB]

Hello RickB
You will notice that my desk columns are 6'6" deep.
I drilled my holes 5'4" before backfilling and then with grading and interlocking final grade the columns are 6'6" below grade.

It is hard on paper to make your friend dig a deep hole when they keep looking for the EASY BUTTON.

I was looking at the 3 PTH auger top link posts.
I have been playing with making a sliding drive extension on my 3 PTH. I have already made 2 extensions one 12" one 18". I should take some pics if there is any interseted members. These extensions are 2" schedule 40 pipe with a solid nose welded in. These are NOT HIGH TECH.

Craig Clayton

Maybe I missed something, but I didn't see anything in your original dissertation that mentioned depth of the footers.

 

[RickB]

I think that expansive soil/clay could be as much an issue as the frost -- .

Depth to frost is the issue here. Not much doubt about it.

 

[Gizmo2]

BMod,
I think you are pretty much on point with what you say in your last post.
I do not believe you have frost pushing up your post but rather frost pulling up the posts.
Do the posts have uplift anchors? If not I would say the issue may stem from an incompetent contractor.

 

[BMod]

Up lift anchor, consists of a piece of 2"x6" board nailed to the side of the post to make the post 1 1/2" wider at the very bottom of the post. So up lift surface area is only 1 1/2" wide by 5", basically the butt end of a 2x6. I thought this was kind of cheesy also......