Pole barn make over

[Hay Dude]

In my little town, we have a PE (professional engineer) you can meet with. Usually he will review my plans or even draw them for me.
In your case, you could probably have him visit your property, take a few measurements or pictures and he will send you a sketch of the area showing the header size, the posts and footings required to support it and the attachment requirements for post to header and trusses to header.
Probably cost you 2-300 bucks. It’ll be money well spent. You don’t want to screw around with the wrong size or wrong installation.

 

[KennyG]

To size your beam, you need to determine the roof load. The lightest that it typically used is 20 lb/sq ft and that assumes a metal roof and no snow load. If your building is 24 feet deep, you would have 240 lbs per linear foot at the beam. Although you have trusses, you can probably assume uniform loading on the beam.

Using the formula W=8fS/l, you need to determine the required S (section modulus) for the beam. Just grabbing typical numbers, assume the steel fiber stress is 20,000 psi. W, the load, for your 22 foot span is 22 x 240 or 5280 lbs. The span is 22 x 12 = 264 inches. The required S is then about 8.7 in**3. Looking at my old beam tables a 6 inch standard weight beam (17.25 lb per foot) has S=8.7. The more common 6 inch lightweight beam (12.5 lb per foot) is S=7.3.

This is pretty minimal design and assumes a very light roof. If I were doing this, I would probably look for an 8 inch lightweight beam and add the posts as recommended above to bring the span down to 18 feet.

All of this is a 10 minute handbook job, so it's your building and your responsibility.

 

[Slong1958]

Here痴 the build sheet on my trusses which has the roof load.

 

[EddieWalker]

By removing that middle post, you have gone from a simple, use just about anything span, to an expensive span. Why can't you leave that post there?

 

[Slong1958]

Eddie when I built the barn I put the post on 10’ center so you have about 9’6” of clearance. I’ve got a lawn trailer and my truck that I park in there and it would be really tight with 9’ doors. I don’t believe my truck would even fit without folding the mirrors in. As I said before I’d like 8’ tall doors but I don’t have to have them I’m just checking. I talked to a local metal supply company and sent them the paper work so I’m just waiting on them now. The guy that owns it is a structure engineer but is out of town so it looks like I’ll have to wait till next week to find out what size metal beam I’d need.

 

[GLyford]

How about putting in a new post, 12 or 14' would be a lot easier than 20.

 

[Hay Dude]

Eddie when I built the barn I put the post on 10 center so you have about 9? of clearance. I致e got a lawn trailer and my truck that I park in there and it would be really tight with 9 doors. I don稚 believe my truck would even fit without folding the mirrors in. As I said before I壇 like 8 tall doors but I don稚 have to have them I知 just checking. I talked to a local metal supply company and sent them the paper work so I知 just waiting on them now. The guy that owns it is a structure engineer but is out of town so it looks like I値l have to wait till next week to find out what size metal beam I壇 need.

I think youre on the right track now. If I wanted a quick and simple solution, Id reduce the width of the opening to 10-12 feet which should allow most anything to pass through. You could do that with ordinary framing lumber. A 20 clear span opening is huge.
My small barn has an 18 foot clear span opening and I admit, I do like it. The first picture shows my 18 foot wide x 10 foot high opening. 2nd picture shows the size of the Paralam I used. And thats a non load bearing front wall! That just keeps the opening from sagging!
I set that puppy with my new holland backhoe and pallet forks. It was about 25 feet long.

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie when I built the barn I put the post on 10 center so you have about 9? of clearance. I致e got a lawn trailer and my truck that I park in there and it would be really tight with 9 doors. I don稚 believe my truck would even fit without folding the mirrors in. As I said before I壇 like 8 tall doors but I don稚 have to have them I知 just checking. I talked to a local metal supply company and sent them the paper work so I知 just waiting on them now. The guy that owns it is a structure engineer but is out of town so it looks like I値l have to wait till next week to find out what size metal beam I壇 need.

I agree that 9ft is kind of tight. It's also the most affordable door size that you can get, and Lowes keeps a bunch of them in stock. My shop door is 10 feet wide and that was a mistake. I can get my truck and trailer into it, but it's tight and when there is a storm coming, and I have a pallet of concrete in the trailer, it's painful to get that trailer in there quickly. I think 12 foot is the ideal width for a shop door for ease of getting in and out.

I would figure out how to create 12 foot openings and not go any wider by relocating the posts. I would avoid dealing with a metal I beam. That just complicates things. I would make a header out of three 2x8's with half inch plywood between each 2x8.