Need advice on pole barn cost--

[rtimgray]

The disparity in pricing is amazing to me. I am working on a 1,500 sq. ft. addition to our house (doing all the work myself) and it is going to finish out at about $22-$25 per sq. ft. A friend at work got quotes for having a house built (about 2,000 sq. ft. and the quotes averaged $91 per sq. ft. I know this isn't the same as pole barns, but there is obviously quite a premium for having someone else do the building for you.

I also find it interesting that as we have been going through this process, we are comparing to the costs for the house that we built between 2004 to 2007. Almost every material that we are buying now (lumber, sheet goods, insulation, drywall) is cheaper by 10% to 50% (example: 2x10 floor joists were about $15 each when we bought them for the first house; just under $10 for them now). The only items that have gone up have been concrete by a few dollars per yard and asphalt shingles. It seems that now is a good time to be building, due to relatively lower material costs, at least in my neck of the woods.

Good luck and take care.

 

[mx842]

Just wanted to point out that I couldn't get near my buddy's price either, especially with concrete. I know he got a deal and I'm envious everytime I go to visit. And I'm sure NY is much different than WV. BTW, I'm in Maryland and a pretty good bargain shopper myself. Shopped long and hard to get the $8500 price. This is what I ended up with for $2500.

Yeah I understand how prices can be all over the place in different parts of the country. Talking about being a penny pincher......I have squeezed every oz of juice out of every cent I have put into my project and it looks like I'm still going to come in a little over what I expected to build my barn for. Of-course I have done a couple upgrades I had not figured in when I first started like my in floor heat system and an add on or two but in the end it will be worth it.

There is an advertiser on here, Carter Lumber that offers pretty good pricing on kits, I'll find a link in a minute and post it. I almost bought one of their kits but decided against it because of the steel structure I wanted to build inside the barn would not have worked out as well so I decided to go piece by piece. And it was easier to come up with two or three thousand at a pop than it was to come up with ten thousand all at once. Here is the link to their kit pricing....

Kit and Package Estimates There is a link on some pages here but I posted it here for good measure.

I looked at those carport type buildings and almost bought one just to store my junk until I could get my shop built but I opted out for blue tarps instead I can buy a bunch of those for $2500.:laughing: They are good storage building though.

 

[mx842]

The disparity in pricing is amazing to me. I am working on a 1,500 sq. ft. addition to our house (doing all the work myself) and it is going to finish out at about $22-$25 per sq. ft. A friend at work got quotes for having a house built (about 2,000 sq. ft. and the quotes averaged $91 per sq. ft. I know this isn't the same as pole barns, but there is obviously quite a premium for having someone else do the building for you.

I also find it interesting that as we have been going through this process, we are comparing to the costs for the house that we built between 2004 to 2007. Almost every material that we are buying now (lumber, sheet goods, insulation, drywall) is cheaper by 10% to 50% (example: 2x10 floor joists were about $15 each when we bought them for the first house; just under $10 for them now). The only items that have gone up have been concrete by a few dollars per yard and asphalt shingles. It seems that now is a good time to be building, due to relatively lower material costs, at least in my neck of the woods.

Good luck and take care.

I built my house in 91/92 and I got shafted right in the middle of my build by one of those big hurricanes that hit down in Fl or maybe it was in SC. I didn't have room for both the first and second floor lumber package at the site because of how my house was sitting in the woods so I went ahead and paid for the first load and figured I would order the second half 4 or 5 days later once we used up what was on the ground. We had a couple days rain which held me up for another few days and by the time I went to pay for the second half of my building package the hurricane inflation had took over and there wasn't a piece of plywood anywhere on the east coast that could be had for less than $44.00 a sheet. A week earlier it was $24.00 for 3/4 sheeting. Framing 2x4's went from .94 cents apiece to $4.00 and this really put a hold on my whole project. I had to Blue tarp the whole thing and wait for half of the South to be rebuilt before prices stabilized to where I could afford to continue. The thing was, prices never did come back to where they were before that storm, they did come down but overall prices stayed about 50/60% over what they were before the storm. This really put a hurting on my build because I had a construction loan and couldn't get them to up the funds so I had to cut back on some of the extras I wanted so I could still get it under roof and dried in before the due date on my construction loan to where I could convert it over to a regular loan.

Concrete prices have come down a little compared to a few years ago and have been around $95.00 a yard for 6 or more yards at a time it had gotten up to over $125.00 a yard for some time and hopefully I can get my floor poured in my building before it goes up again. I bought a hundred 8' 2x4's the other day and paid $2.64 each which was the best price in town that I could find.

When I was building one of the side sheds off the side of my barn I needed 50 2x6's and I went to Lowes to pick them up I could buy salt treated 2x6's cheaper than I could buy regular pine boards (salt treated boards were a $1 apiece cheaper) so I built the whole addition out of salt treated lumber.

 

[Gittyup]

The thing about the carports is the basic package is OK.... for a carport. But if you upgrade the frame to 12 gauge, add braces and gable construction with high walls. They are actually pretty nice and quite sturdy. I also went with mobile home anchors to keep it from blowing away. I"m very happy with what I got for $2500. I can now use the extra money for other things, like another property or a European vacation.... or maybe a boat

 

[tedj12]

I just had a quote about a couple months ago for something similar to this. I had 16' instead of 14' and had two enclosed lean-tos instead. I came out(just for the kit including shipping) at $31k. This was for one of the farms in Kansas not sure how we compare to other areas like on the east or west coast. When I was searching around I found it cheaper to do wood buildings then metal buildings.