Having a pole building built

[Duffster]

Like this

 

[EddieWalker]

$18 a sq ft seems a touch on the high side, but not rediculous. It's also a regional thing, so it might sound like allot to me where labor is cheap compared to other areas where labor and permitting are expensive. If it's a company with a good reputation and a history of quality workmanship, then that's all that really matters.

How far from your home and water source will the building be? Having water, or not having water, is something I would strongly think about. This building will be there for a very long time, and I think having water available at the building is one of those must haves. One spickit at the front near your big door and another inside. If you have permit issues with putting a sink inside the building because of no septic tank, then just add it later after the final inspection is done. For an inside sink, you just run a drain out to the bushes to water the plants. As for dealing with freezing temps and not being there, it's done all the time with weekend cabins and other rarely used buildings. Put a good quality gate valve in the ground where you can easily get to it year round. I've seen them outside of buildings, but don't care for that as it's a pain to turn on and off if it's raining out side or snow on the ground. Putting it inside the building keeps it safe and easy to turn on and off.

Eddie

 

[Duffster]

$18 a sq ft seems a touch on the high side, but not rediculous. It's also a regional thing, so it might sound like allot to me where labor is cheap compared to other areas where labor and permitting are expensive. If it's a company with a good reputation and a history of quality workmanship, then that's all that really matters.

How far from your home and water source will the building be? Having water, or not having water, is something I would strongly think about. This building will be there for a very long time, and I think having water available at the building is one of those must haves. One spickit at the front near your big door and another inside. If you have permit issues with putting a sink inside the building because of no septic tank, then just add it later after the final inspection is done. For an inside sink, you just run a drain out to the bushes to water the plants. As for dealing with freezing temps and not being there, it's done all the time with weekend cabins and other rarely used buildings. Put a good quality gate valve in the ground where you can easily get to it year round. I've seen them outside of buildings, but don't care for that as it's a pain to turn on and off if it's raining out side or snow on the ground. Putting it inside the building keeps it safe and easy to turn on and off.

Eddie

Post frames in snow country are a different animal than in Texas

 

[yooperdave]

Some pole building builders own a back hoe and are able to dig their own holes - regardless of most conditions.

Make sure you have a contingency plan to dig out any rocks, as Cleary threw their hands up in the air quickly leaving me in the learch to buy my neighbor's hoe services.

My Cleary dealer was out of Escanaba - is that the same location you are talking to?

Good Luck

Yooper Dave

 

[thunderworks]

An electrical suggestion for your shop/pole building . . . put your electrical in metal flex conduit to keep the critters from chewing the wires. Costs increase, but not nearly as much as dealing with chewed wires buried in the wall a few years down the road.

 

[hanson1999]

if you put a hydrant in like the previous post said, do not have it coming up through concrete. eventually it will wear out then you have to chop concrete to fix it. come up through the floor with plastic flex pipe, maybe you could have it feeding from a house or other structure where you can shut it off and push some antifreeze through for cold season???

 

[Dave5264]

Water out to the building is doable, Im up in Northern Ontario, we get the extremem freezing. The water line to the barn has a spigot/tap in the barn and a spigot/tap at the house along with a shut off in the house. I made an adapter that screws on to the Tap/Spigot at the house, this adapter has an air hose quick connect on it so i can hook up my air compressor, open the tap in the barn and blow all the water out. thus no freeze up in the winter.

 

[smfcpacfp]

My house will be a hundred or so feet from the front of my metal building. If I ever need water, I can just string some hose together.

Having continuous water, sewer is just not an important isssue for me despite everything said here. I can't imagine why I would ever need it, except sometimes when welding. I will continue to wash vehicles, etc where I do now.

 

[smfcpacfp]

Some pole building builders own a back hoe and are able to dig their own holes - regardless of most conditions.

Make sure you have a contingency plan to dig out any rocks, as Cleary threw their hands up in the air quickly leaving me in the learch to buy my neighbor's hoe services.

My Cleary dealer was out of Escanaba - is that the same location you are talking to?

Good Luck

Yooper Dave

Yes the dealer is out of Escanaba. My soil is pure beach sand down 200 feet at least. If you can find a rock anywhere on my property, I would gvie you $100. All of my rock is imported.

 

[Dave5264]

momentarily off topic smfcpacfp, but.... Nice Vette. im a C4 vette guy, but id love a yellow c6

 

[smfcpacfp]

momentarily off topic smfcpacfp, but.... Nice Vette. im a C4 vette guy, but id love a yellow c6

It is a fun car to drive and it is my daily driver for 7 1/2 months a year. It is very comfortable on long trips, get 26 mpg going 10 over the speed limit and has 520 hp when needed.

 

[gordyy]

just a quick throw in about the drain
Here in ND we have the freeze thing big time
most of the time you can put a floor drain in and just pipe it to a dry well outside
sometimes a trap is put in sometimes not
it does get rid of any slop in the spring that comes in
just run the pipe oversize out the wall and dig a couple post holes deep as you can and fill with rock

 

[cjk]

If you plan to heat it, put radiant tubes in the floor. Ive worked in shops with heated floors and its SOOOOO NICE.

I second the over head or inside slider doors if you get any snow. It builds up on the track on outside sliders and takes forever to clear to get the door open in winter. Then the next day you get to do it all over again if it snows.

Run the phone, cable and anything else while you are trenching.

If no toilet in the shop, at least run a pipe(drain) so you can take a leak inside. Kind of like a mini urinal.

 

[smfcpacfp]

appreciated all of your advice. I started this thread in June thinking that I would have this project done by now, but in fact I just signed a contract for Cleary to build the building yesterday, and they will start around Oct 24 and be finished by Holloween.

Some of your recommendations that I decided to not take: I decided to not use in floor heating for my shop area (1/4) of the building because of the cost verses my useage in the winter. I decided not have have water or sewer due to the proximity to my house, but I think I will have a few pipes put in the concrete for future consideration.

One thing that I wasn't aware of was that the average height of an accessory building in a residential district in my township cannot exceed an average height of 15', even though my residential district requires 10 acre parcels. Since I plan to put an RV in it which is 1" shy of 11', that causes a problem, so we were able to reduce the eave height to 12'6" but in order to meet the height requirement the pitch on the roof is 3.5 by 12.

For you people from the south that probably wouldn't be a problem but where you get 10 to 20 feet of snow a year between thaws, that is an issue. My friends, who are tuned into building here in a snow belt, cringed when I told them that. They felt it should be a minimum of 5 by 12, but I told them that building is engineered to a snow load of 75 pounds per square foot, but they still cringed, and to be honest I am nervous.

I figure that I will need to try to clear the snow off the roof early in the snow season from the ground, but once the snow gets several feet deep on the ground it gets very difficult to clear in that manner.

Why would I be sensitive to this? Well my first garage collapsed under a heavy snow load followed by a hard rain at the freezing point in 1991. So I always get nervous when the snow on my roof gets deep.

 

[Dog Lover]

MY BROTHER LIVES IN HARRISON MI. I SHOWED HIM YOUR RECENT POST. HE BUILD LOG HOMES AND OTHERS AND HAS DONE POLE BUILDINGS. HE FEELS YOU SHOULD HAVE A MINIMUM OF 5 X 12 PITCH OR IT WILL COLLAPSE. YOU CANNOT STAND ON A STEEL ROOF TO CLEAR IT... HE FEELS WITH THE SNOW HE GETS SOUTH OF YOU, IT SURE WON'T HOLD FURTHER NORTH.

SNOW ON A 3.5 X 12 PITCH WILL NOT SLIDE! TO SAVE SOME HEARTACHE, GO WITH A HIGHER PITCH ESPECIALLY ON A BIGGER BUILDING! IF YOU MUST DO IT, PUT THE DOOR ON THE GABLE END SO ANY SLIDING SNOW WON'T BURY THE DOOR AND BE SURE TO USE 16" CENTERS RATHER THAN 24" CENTERS. HE ASKED WHAT GUAGE STEEL ARE YOU USING? HE SAID YOU CANNOT GET UP ANY FURTHER UP THAN 3-5FT WITH A SNOW RAKE!

 

[The Baron]

I do not know if I would be that worried about the 3.5 pitch roof. That is what I have on my building. I am in NW WI. and I have a dark green roof on mine, it empties itself all winter long. My friend lives in Mercer, WI ( snowbelt area) and he has the same pitch roof which also empties all winter long. It is pretty cool to be standing outside and watch all that snow come off. The one thing I would suggest is to put OSB or Plywood on the bottom 4 feet of the walls behind the metal so when all that snow comes crashing down it doesn't bend up your metal. We just put it behind our wainscoting. What did the guys from Cleary say about the snow load?

 

[Duffster]

MY BROTHER LIVES IN HARRISON MI. I SHOWED HIM YOUR RECENT POST. HE BUILD LOG HOMES AND OTHERS AND HAS DONE POLE BUILDINGS. HE FEELS YOU SHOULD HAVE A MINIMUM OF 5 X 12 PITCH OR IT WILL COLLAPSE. YOU CANNOT STAND ON A STEEL ROOF TO CLEAR IT... HE FEELS WITH THE SNOW HE GETS SOUTH OF YOU, IT SURE WON'T HOLD FURTHER NORTH.

SNOW ON A 3.5 X 12 PITCH WILL NOT SLIDE! TO SAVE SOME HEARTACHE, GO WITH A HIGHER PITCH ESPECIALLY ON A BIGGER BUILDING! IF YOU MUST DO IT, PUT THE DOOR ON THE GABLE END SO ANY SLIDING SNOW WON'T BURY THE DOOR AND BE SURE TO USE 16" CENTERS RATHER THAN 24" CENTERS. HE ASKED WHAT GUAGE STEEL ARE YOU USING? HE SAID YOU CANNOT GET UP ANY FURTHER UP THAN 3-5FT WITH A SNOW RAKE!

Some of my buildings are 3/12 pitch and the snow slides off fine.

 

[dave1949]

YOU CANNOT STAND ON A STEEL ROOF TO CLEAR IT...
SNOW ON A 3.5 X 12 PITCH WILL NOT SLIDE!

I can surely tell you, you cannot walk on a snowy metal roof, you will go for the ride of your life.

About the pitch/slide, there are variables - compass direction is a big one, heat or no heat in the building, heated building with insualted attic space, etc.

I know duffster loves being a contrarian (I too have low pitch metal roof and it will eventually slide) but all other things being equal, the 5/12 roof will clear before the 3.5/12.

I should add, the winter of 2007-08, I had multiple layers of snow ice about 1-2 foot deep, it was so locked up, it wouldn't slide on it's own.

Dave.