I need some opinions- Pole barn and floor?

[wedge40]

I did exactly this. I left my floor dirt, and "parked inside it for over a year. Because of the way it was built, I needed about 6" of dirt removed before they poured the floor. So keep final floor height in mind when building the barn. I put down gravel, rigid foam, rebar and pex. This required about 7"-8" before the concrete was poured. It's not the ideal situation, but unless you have the money on hand it works. Not sure when I'll get around to hooking up the radiant heat, but it's something you can't add later.

Wedge

 

[farmer2009]

You don't have to have a roller to compact fill this can be done with a dozer and medium sized tractor. Just in layers of no more than one foot (12"). Takes time but can be done. Have gotten it compacted enough the concrete trucks don't leave a track this way. I see you are setting post to the bottom of the fill so you don't have to worry about pushing the post down with the weight of the building otherwise you need to set post and pour pinned concrete to post before you add roof and walls. As for gravel just use 610s they will compact nicely and give good base for concrete. Just add them as normal and build a ramp at the doors. Very little extra cost and waste this way. Then you just tear out ramp and pour. Understand about waiting if you are also building a house. Make sense.

 

[BeezFun]

I was thinking of putting in the gravel as if i were going to put in the concrete floor and at the OH door just put a 4x4 down and build like a ramp of gravel on either side, this way the OH door has something to seal on.

That's what I did. I don't plan to pour concrete, I'm keeping the floor gravel. But in order to give my door a seal I embedded a 4x4 in the gravel so the surface is level with gravel. It's held up well but it's only been one winter, I assume at some point it will heave and I'll have to re-level it.

Your other option is bring the gravel up to final grade now. When/if you finally pour concrete, the gravel will have settled some, and it's easy to scrape out the rest with a skidsteer to level everything up. Every time I plan on doing something "next year" it seems to be more like 5 years.

 

[SPIKER]

It took a LOT of years prior to me getting my Concrete in but Time $ and the like got in the way... One of the hardest parts was getting everything OUT so the concrete work could be done. Mine ended up 9 years till it was poured but been great having it in there. not a crack worth worrying about & I had 24" of lifts compacted gravel and sand/clay mix in one end used story pole to final grade week prior to pour using sand mix and rolled it then ran vibrator compactor over it for 8 hours. ended up adding about 6 yards of sand, fines and gravel mix to level...

One thing is that fill (8 feet worth) is a LOT and I would say make sure to be there when the poles are drilled and set into solid base. Might even make extra large holes and pour concrete in bottom of the holes then drop in poles centered using some PT lumber and then back fill and tamp the poles in lifts after held firm.

These depths of fill would be a recipe of sag for anything on top of it. Company I worked for had one build on 15' of fill that had been compacted for years, it lasted 3 years and was condemned from corner to corner it collapsed 4 or 5 feet... seems that under there un known to the new management they buried a bunch of tree root balls and such 40 years ago when the dump had started. It was rolled and compacted heavily but still ended up caving in. The company paid the maintenance manager to tear it down 5000 to tear out 30K building. He got 12K in aluminum siding off it & 9k more in copper from the sprinklers...

Mark

 

[paintman161]

The builder who will be doing it, suggested i go down the extra 4' with the pole to get on solid ground, so i have no doubt he knows what he is doing. He will need to use his excavator to dig the holes for the pole barn, as i don't think there is anything that can dig an 16"-18" hole 8' deep.

Thanks for all the info is was a great help and put my mind a little at ease.

 

[Soundguy]

we have used a bucket truck with an auger before. same thing the electric co uses to drop poles.

 

[Ken45101]

Many of the skid steer augers have optional extensions for digging deep.

 

[Dr Dave]

Dont forget pictures.

Dave

 

[paintman161]

So here is the pictures from the building process. I did not build this myself as i was too busy hunting I hired a local contractor and he did a very good job for someone who builds houses all the time. The pole barn was ordered from polebarnsdirect.com very good customer service!

 

[Hiltz]

If I was worried about the base settling I would drill 9 or 12" holes every 6 feet and fill these with concrete to help support the floor. If that was too expensive you could throw in 4x4 treated timbers into your drilled holes. For a pole barn this might be sufficient. Nice looking building.