Pole Barn Construction tips / heating?

[NIXON]

Slippy ,
I do pole barns for a living . I'd go with 6X6 all around if it were mine. I'd most likely use the ones that are laminated out of 2x6 (4 1/2 x 5 1/2) They tend to be Straighter with less twisting . As For insulation I'd go with a product like Astro Foil . It's kinda like a double layer of bubble wrap with foil facing . You cap nail it to the purlins ,the seal the joints with Foil tape . Makes walking up the purlins with steel fun at times , But it does work well. We hand nail most everything. ( it seems to pull the boards together better than gun nailing .)
For Girts and purlins (lying flat we use 20 d ring shanks (galvanized ) For purlins on edge we use 60 d ring shanks (hardened ) to secure them to the truss . and 16 or 20 d's where the purlins overlap . Nail spacing is 2" IE 2x4 =2nails
2x6=3nails etc... Truss hanger straps aren't abad idea either.
Good luck , John

 

[SteveBenson]

Slippy,

We were using 29 gauge Fabral sheet metal. We bought our barn from a lumber yard "kit". It originally came with PT 4x6. The guy we were dealing with upgraded them to 6x6, said he never sold them with the 4x6s personally. We ended using PT 6x6. The reason for my recommending the laminated 6x6s are for the reasons John mentioned below. They are much truer, stronger, dimensionally stable, and you can get then w/ only the bottoms treated to .8 CCA. We had to scrap about 10% of our poles (fortunately I ordered a few extra) because they were too bowed or twisted. Some of them also had huge deep cracks along the grain. Southern Yellow Pine (what they use for PT) is not the greatest wood in the world, especially for larger beams and posts. With laminated posts cracking is minimized as the wood used is much thinner and any such defects will likely be stabilized by adjacent plys.

We hand nailed the 20D Pole Barn nails. The nails themselves were hard enough to find in my neck of the woods (I had to order a 50# box from Home Depot). I wasn’t even going to try and find them for my nail gun. With only 2 at each purlin/girt it’s not that bad. Using a heavy hammer helps too.

I would definitely take a closer look at some of those barns using the foam board insulation. Like I said, it's pretty subtle. Maybe you could get some hints on the installation. We found that it was completely impossible to gauge the proper point to stop turning the screw. Watching the gasket compress didn’t really seem to give any good measure. We always got some compression in the foam. And with 3 guys putting in screws, everybody was getting different results.

A couple of other recommendations I thought of:
1) Make sure you get your poles long enough to extend up past you eve girders to nail the trusses to. This might seem like a no-brainer, but leave yourself plenty to play with as your holes will probably not all be at the same depth. It hard enough to get the poles into the exact position, you don’t want to be worrying about the height of the poles as you are doing this. Best to leave them a little long and top them prior to putting up the trusses (or after).

2) Use long posts on the gable ends to go all the way up to the top chord of your trusses. This will make bracing the first couple of trusses a non-issue and will be much stronger overall. The nice thing about those laminated posts is that they can easily make them in longer lengths, so they don’t gouge you on the price for the long ones.

-Steve

 

[SteveBenson]

John,

Being a pro from PA I'd like to hear your opinion on strap bracing. I have seen it only on a couple of large pole buildings (indoor horse arenas) put up by Morton. I've seen a 72x150 wood truss pole barn w/ steel siding and it seems that the olny bracing they used was this strap bracing. It was a heavy 1" galvanized strap placed in large Xs (from floor to eve) on the outside of the girts in all the corners of the building, both the side and end walls. They also did the same thing on the roof, placing a large Xs at the ends of the roof from ridge to eve (over the top of the pulins under the siding).

Seems cheap and strong, what's your opinion? Have you ever used it?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[NIXON]

Steve,
Generally we brace with OSB in the corners of the building , and 2x4 or 2x6 wind bracing in the trusses . ( it's a company thing ) I have used The strap bracing , and like it a lot . Very easy to do . I'd probabably go that way on my own buildings.
Another thing that works is using screws to Stitch the seams of the matal panels ( every 2 ft ) . This really helps . You just have to be real careful when you put the screws in not to strip out the metal . ( a bag of the next larger diameter screws helps for those you strip out ) Also , for the roof get some BOOB , Or GOOF Screws ... It can be really easy to miss a purlin (on edge) . John

 

[CTyler]

I am having a 50x64 building put up and I'm not crazy about the so called footing they are using. Its basicaly a concrete step stone. They haven't started yet cause of weather.

I was thinking about having a cement truck come out to fill the holes after setting the posts on thier cookie. It was suggested that I wrap the the post with tar paper. This is to keep the cement from attacking the post? It was also sugessted to drill a couple holes and put rebar through them. The posts are CCA treated.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[NIXON]

Ctyler
I don't like the precast concrete pads as the tend to not sit properly in the holes . once you drop a 60+ pound concrete pad down a 4-6 ft deep by 18" wide hole , it get pretty hard to make adjustments /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gifWe generally pour concrete . Just make sure the surface is smooth . it makes setting the poles less of a chore . Also be sure that the holes are resonably well placed and that there is not a lot of loose dirt in the bottom of the holes . You don't want the poles sitting at the very edge of the concrete (as in overhanging the concrete)and you don't want the soil under the pads compacting because of loose dirt . This is especially true on the poles that carry the headers . The gable ends are a bit more forgiving .
We drill the pole bottoms for rebar,or secure blocks to the poles . It keeps the poles from being lifted.
I've never wrapped the poles ,so I don't know if it would make a difference. John

 

[SteveBenson]

John and Ctyler,

What about these Post Protector. Any good?

-Steve

 

[NIXON]

Steve,
To be honest, I've never seen them . I did book mark the home page though . I think I'll talk with the boss tomorrow and see if we can't at least look into them .
Seems like it might bee a good thing . John

 

[Justaplain]

The guy that put mine up 20 years ago drove abunch of BIG spikes part way in and then filled 1/3 to 1/2 with concrete. bcs

 

[CTyler]

Thanks, Looks interesting.