New Garage/Barn, hole to roof

[CurlyDave]

The kubota lifts 730lbs, to a height of 7'. Not quite enough to work with. The biggest problem is that if I leave a balcony such as you suggest, I have a two-story room right there to heat and cool, which is orders of magnitude more difficult/expensive.

I will make one more suggestion & then leave you in peace.

I have seen many barns with what I would call a "freight door", although the farmers probably call it something else, which opens directly from a second floor loft to the outside.

If you put in a door like that (probably needs a simple safety device), you could use your Kubota to build a ramp below the door. A 4' ramp would let you lift your 730 lbs to a height of 11' inside the barn.

Since I have seen so many of these, I am going to assume that they can be made to meet code. And this design allows you to use nearly all of the upper floor for storage.

The downside of course is the 730 pound limit...

 

[whodat90]

I had originally considered having a hayloft door with a widow's peak and pulley, then that migrated into having an I-beam mounted under the peak with a hoist and trolley system. Unfortunately that ended up being way too complex. I do plan to have a hayloft door, probably one at each end, mostly because it's easy to put in now, plus it'd make for a good elevated position for deer hunting. I don't know whether or not it'd be worth building the ramp like you suggest, but it is something I have considered. The biggest problems I have with it is that it depends on the tractor and the horizontal size of the ramp. I don't much like the concept of depending on the tractor to be able to be able to lift and lower things; among other things it makes me the only one that can do it My wife is simply not to be trusted near expensive buildings with machinery. Yesterday when driving the lawn tractor around towing the trailer with christmas stuff from the shed, she ran into a decorative stone statue and busted the lights off the trailer, then knocked over the barbecue. My son's a good driver, but he's only 7 and hasn't quite gotten the clutch concept down. I would, of course, love to have a larger tractor but I have to sell the 7200 as it is to offset the cost of the 8200. The other problem, the horizontal length of the ramp. Due to a slight grade, it would logically have to end up on the uphill side. If I went with a 4' high ramp, a horizontal distance of 16' would still give me a pretty steep slope, at least steep enough that I'd have to use more than simple gravel.
Please don't take this as me not valuing your opinion, I do. I want as many viewpoints, options, and opinions as possible. I'm not married to any of my ideas yet, and if I find a better or more workable solution to any of my problems I will absolutely go with them.

 

[kmdigital]

Why does the sub panel wire need to be copper? You can use aluminum wire as long as you size it properly.

Also, more than likely, the utility company will run aluminum service wire anyway. At least they all do around here, so if I were doing it I would just run a 100 amp rated aluminum service wire from the house. This will be way cheaper then paying the utility ~ $250 to run another service from the pole. If memory serves me correctly, I paid ~ $1.30 per foot for a four conductor direct burial aluminum service entrance cable sized for 100 amp.

The only way I would install another service is if they don't charge you another monthly fee for a second meter, and only billed you for the kWh used. But even then, if they are like the local utility company, the first 50 kWh used each month is charged at a much higher rate then the next 200 kWh, in which case for something like a barn you may well end up paying the highest rate every month on a second meter.

 

[Dusty]

I prefer to use a 3" grey PVC electrical conduit. That way, you can also lay another conduit alongside and have telephone, TV, or computer in the garage for relaxing. If you have to dig, dig once and forget it. I have seen rocks damage direct burial wire.

 

[whodat90]

No pic updates, but then the hole in the ground is pretty much the same as it was. Contractor called me, he has permit in hand and the hole will be inspected the next couple of days, and the footers will be poured on friday.
whodat

 

[bones1]

Dusty, do you mean put a smaller pipe inside of the 3 in?.

 

[Dusty]

Sorry, I might not have been clear on this. Run the other pipe or pipes alongside of the 3" pipe. Electrical PVC is very inexpensive when you purchase it at the electrical supply house. I have learned from experience that you can never have enough "runs" for everything you want. Digging is expensive and time consuming as compared to the cost of laying an additional pipe. I only wish that I had laid more pipes when building my home when the trenches were open. The reason that I like pipe verses direct burial, is that if it goes bad for any reason, you can pull it and install another quickly as compared to having to dig to install another. Also, there are the landscaping considerations... you don't want to be repairing the gardens and lawns.

 

[john_bud]

Dusty,

Smart, very smart.

jb

 

[whodat90]

I was planning on running at least two 3" pipes from the slab over to my basement, just for general principles. Easy to run network cable, air lines, you name it. Maybe I'll just add a third as well and run the aluminum through that.
whodat

 

[LarryRB]

I did 5800 ft of pipe in a local campground. They required 4" for the electric, two, 2" pipe, one each for phone and cable, and the camp owners had me install a third 2" pipe, capped at each end, in case of future fiber optics or? This is one of the few campgrounds out of the many of them between CT and MA state lines, that has 100 amp service, phone and cable at each campsite.