OP
LD1
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At the moment I am leaning towards drilling the holes. But all I have is a 9" auger. IF I can find a bigger one on c-list for a fair price between now and then that would be great.
Posts Footings: What do you prefer?
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SPIKER
Elite Member
Wish I had taken some photos of the post prep and hole prep but I was doing a lot of clean up work as well as keeping the poles moved using the tractor while the amish boys were drilling; cleaning holes, staking poles and hammering in the stringers...
I kept real busy cleaning up stuff and keeping area free of chunks while the rough framing was being done. I put down 20K for the barn in photos which included 2 doors & insulated Garage door. everything is on 16" centers on 2nd floor joists and rafters. downstairs is typical pole barn construction.
The concrete was $6800 installed but again I did all prep work including under slab insulation PEX-AL-PEX infloor tubing etc. I had probably 4 CY extra of concrete ordered overage which was 300 bucks more spent than needed.
mark
I kept real busy cleaning up stuff and keeping area free of chunks while the rough framing was being done. I put down 20K for the barn in photos which included 2 doors & insulated Garage door. everything is on 16" centers on 2nd floor joists and rafters. downstairs is typical pole barn construction.
The concrete was $6800 installed but again I did all prep work including under slab insulation PEX-AL-PEX infloor tubing etc. I had probably 4 CY extra of concrete ordered overage which was 300 bucks more spent than needed.
mark
EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
I like how much research you are putting into this. One of the things people tend to do is rely on what others say who have only been involved in one build, or just base their knowledge of casual observation. There are numerous reasons for a building to fail, most common is a lack of basic building skills in how the framing is done. I have a job next week where a crew of "framers" started a job and then disappeared after a couple of weeks. The client thought they where pros because they had done so many houses in the area. Everything they did was sloppy and in a few places, totally wrong. Once I pointed out to him what I was seeing, it was pretty obvious to him that they didn't know what they where doing.
If that animal shed had been built with poles in the ground at least three feet deep, there is no way they would have come out of the ground. Without pics it's impossible to know what happened, but my money is on sloppy framing being the cause of the failure.
Eddie
jix
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The biggest issue is frost heave..here in New Brunswick we use a plastic form called a Bigfoot. It is an inverted cone with a ten inch dia tube that goes down to the cone. You dig a hole deep enough to get the base of the cone below frost (4 feet or more, then tamp the dirt and throw in the cone, full it with concrete, then put in the down tube and the post and fill that too, ensure that the post is plumb and backfill... Then let the concrete set.
The plastic down tube does not let the frost get a grip on the post, nor admit water. The bottom of the cone is about 32" in diameter and will carry huge loads. My two storey house 54 x 38 feet has ten of these as a the foundation. NOT a quarter of an inch of movement in 25 years!
I did not pour footings at all, soft sand is why. Nor did I put drains around the perimeter. My foundation wall sills are made of 10x10 PT Hemlock, sitting on the top of the bigfoot concrete tube. The crawl space under the floors has a heavy guage one piece geotechnical impermeable membrane at grade, covered with 2" of crusher dust rock (to prevent moisture from leaching up into the wooden sub floor and to keep the bugs from colonizing the space. The underside of thesub floor also has spayed foam to moisture seal it from exterior cold air and top side it has a very good membrane vapour barrier to seal it from interior warm humid air, The vertical steel stud walls rest upon floor sills that are bolted to the sub floor and each sill bolt is sealed at the point where it penetrates the sub floor. The floor sills are bolted on 24" centers, so no fastener holes compromise the vapour barrier. Water and sewer lines, electrical cables, etc enter through the floor in conduit boxes filled with spray foam and cold-water lines are insulated to prevent sweating.
The crawl space is hoarded at the perimeter with engineered plastic-based deck boards with screened ventilation ports that look like basement windows.
Big foot concrete forms are key to structure stability on a soft sand building site...and far cheaper than other workable alternatives.
The barrier on the warm side of the floor boards is the orange colored poly product used to seal a shower enclosure.
The plastic down tube does not let the frost get a grip on the post, nor admit water. The bottom of the cone is about 32" in diameter and will carry huge loads. My two storey house 54 x 38 feet has ten of these as a the foundation. NOT a quarter of an inch of movement in 25 years!
I did not pour footings at all, soft sand is why. Nor did I put drains around the perimeter. My foundation wall sills are made of 10x10 PT Hemlock, sitting on the top of the bigfoot concrete tube. The crawl space under the floors has a heavy guage one piece geotechnical impermeable membrane at grade, covered with 2" of crusher dust rock (to prevent moisture from leaching up into the wooden sub floor and to keep the bugs from colonizing the space. The underside of thesub floor also has spayed foam to moisture seal it from exterior cold air and top side it has a very good membrane vapour barrier to seal it from interior warm humid air, The vertical steel stud walls rest upon floor sills that are bolted to the sub floor and each sill bolt is sealed at the point where it penetrates the sub floor. The floor sills are bolted on 24" centers, so no fastener holes compromise the vapour barrier. Water and sewer lines, electrical cables, etc enter through the floor in conduit boxes filled with spray foam and cold-water lines are insulated to prevent sweating.
The crawl space is hoarded at the perimeter with engineered plastic-based deck boards with screened ventilation ports that look like basement windows.
Big foot concrete forms are key to structure stability on a soft sand building site...and far cheaper than other workable alternatives.
The barrier on the warm side of the floor boards is the orange colored poly product used to seal a shower enclosure.
Last edited:
bamboozled
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GPintheMitten
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My guess is that the wind blew it over. If it was bad framing it would have come apart not just get upwinded. As I said before it may have been built on skids rather than post and frame.
oldpilgrim
Elite Member
About 20 years ago, I contracted a nationally recognized company to build a pole barn for the company I worked for. It was used to house my company's livestock. It was about 60x100 feet as I remember.
They dug holes below the frost line for the exterior walls and slightly less deep for the interior support poles and then dropped an unopened bag of concrete mix in each hole, set the post on it it and backfilled the posts. Then came the concrete floor. Each of the poles were then 'topped' to the proper length..
It seemed a little unusual to me.
Unfortunately we had a fire about 5 years later and it burned to the ground. (no fault with the building).
When we rebuilt, I oversaw that project too and observed them removing the old poles, during the site prep. The concrete bags that were under the poles were rock hard and supported the poles just as if there was a poured concrete footing.
I was amazed at how well just dropping a bag of concrete in a hole worked.
I plan on adding a wing to my barn and this is the method I will be using.
They dug holes below the frost line for the exterior walls and slightly less deep for the interior support poles and then dropped an unopened bag of concrete mix in each hole, set the post on it it and backfilled the posts. Then came the concrete floor. Each of the poles were then 'topped' to the proper length..
It seemed a little unusual to me.
Unfortunately we had a fire about 5 years later and it burned to the ground. (no fault with the building).
When we rebuilt, I oversaw that project too and observed them removing the old poles, during the site prep. The concrete bags that were under the poles were rock hard and supported the poles just as if there was a poured concrete footing.
I was amazed at how well just dropping a bag of concrete in a hole worked.
I plan on adding a wing to my barn and this is the method I will be using.
OP
LD1
Epic Contributor
Sure is. I didnt see it from 71 tough. As I almost NEVER travel between 61 and 95 on the freeway. I live in the sticks about halfway between the two. So if I go north, I hop on at 95. If I go south I get on at 61. But never a need for being in the middle. I actually saw it from CR20.
IF you enter this 40.462888, -82.765787 into google maps, it should pull up the coordinates of the exact building I saw upended, but otherwise intact. Couldnt tell if it was poles or skids, cause it was ~1/2 mile off the road. IT was red with a white top though...
