Why do some carports and lean-tos have panels half-way up?

[EddieWalker]

The wall adds a huge amount of sheer strength to the building. If you just have the poles, then they would wobble. Adding diagonal bracing at the top of the pole will help strengthening the pole, but it's not going to be as strong as a panel will be. In houses, OSB or Plywood does the same thing. Used to be that every house had a diagonal board cut into the studs to sheer up the wall, then when plywood became more available, a sheet was used in each outside corner, which was a lot stronger. Now we use it on the entire exterior of a house for maximum strength in holding the studs in place, and keeping them for leaning over.

 

[strantor]

Here in my area there are tax implications, unless the walls go all the way to the ground the building can be considered temporary and not taxed. Or so I've been told by a real estate agent.

Mr. President is washing out my google search results on this topic. I'm trying to google things like "tax law on walls that go to the ground" and all the results I get are about the Trump border wall.

I'm in TX as well. If there's a substantial taxable difference between bringing my walls all the way to the ground or not, then I might consider making a change.

Do you happen to know if it makes a difference whether there are all-the-way-to-the-ground walls on 4 sides vs 3 sides vs 2 sides?

Any buzzword suggestions for further research would be appreciated. I'm notoriously bad at thinking of what specific words to search to get relevant results.

 

[strantor]

the walls keep the sun and the elements out while allowing the wind to circulate air through the building keeping it free from condensation.

Condensation has been discussed here a few times in other threads. I'm still baffled by it. My workshop (the structure this is being built up against) is insulated but not climate controlled. By most people's account, it should condense inside but it never has. I have my machine tools in there and they don't rust. I made the mistake of leaving the bay door open for a couple of days last week (effectively making it a 3-walled carport) and everything inside condensed badly. It took a whole day for me to scrub all the surface rust off my machines. So the idea that keeping my tractor implements inside a 3-walled barn would preserve them better than a 4-walled barn, does not fit in well with my experiences. I say this not be contrarian, but to highlight my ongoing failure to grasp the concept.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I am thinking about building a lean too. Like the pres. I want it to be "Powerful" . Steel AND concrete.

I think, I have pretty much wondered my whole life, when I saw a car port if that was just built that way for a cost saving measure. Are there really any other advantages?

In this climate of harsh sun to extreme cold and blowing snow, I am debated, whether to make walls. I am always amazed, how much warmer my GMC thermometer reads when parked in a closed unheated building, over outside temperature.

I have tons of surplus retaining wall stone, and since my proposed lean too is hemmed in by a hillside, I thought I would just build a small retaining wall, but if snow drifted in, against the inside of the wall, that would be a royal pain. Without experience, and with different wind directions, you never really know where the snow is going to end up.

 

[Oaktree]

With open space at the bottom of the sides to facilitate ventilation and reduce sweating.

Here in the north, I'd rather have a half-wall on the lower part to help keep out snow. Shouldn't make much difference as far as ventilation goes.

 

[k0ua]

I will tell you my condensate story:. My building is fully enclosed, and NOT insulated. The floor is just gravel over the native dirt. When first built it would "rain" inside the building at times. Big huge drops of water on the inside of the roof falling down on the implements and tractor. I installed large louvered vents in each end one at the gable apex and one on the other end lower down. It solved the condensate problem almost 100%. Very little and only under extreme circumstances now.

When it was sealed up without any air flow, the hot days would make very high humidity inside and then as soon as darkness came and the sheet metal cooled down, the water formed on the roof and rained down. I suppose my vents let out a lot of that hot humid air and if there is any wind, it flows thru the building and exchanges the hot humid air with cooler less saturated air. The photo is before the vents were added.

 

[strantor]

I am thinking about building a lean too. Like the pres. I want it to be "Powerful" . Steel AND concrete.

GMTA. What I'm calling a "lean-to" isn't really a lean-to at all. It's a pole barn built as close to my shop as possible, self-supported and not attached to the building at all. I had the building built by a licensed contractor who had it engineered and to withstand hurricanes and delivered with architect-stamped prints. Because I live near the coast in the wind zone, I'm operating a business out of it, it's full of expensive stuff, and I wanted to insure it. I don't know all the technicalities surrounding the insurance and what it takes to void that insurance, but I know that the building, as insured, is designed a certain way to withstand a certain load, and hanging stuff off the side of it in a way that it wasn't engineered to support, would likely be a pretty big nail in the coffin if it ever blew down.

So it won't be attached at all. I'll add some flashing under the existing roof panels to transition from one building to the other, but it won't be fastened to the addition. The addition will be free to flex in the wind without ripping the roof off the existing building. I have some concern about wind getting under that unfastened flashing and pulling it up (leading to pulling up on the roof panels) so I'm considering different methods to hold it down without fastening it down. I'm thinking some powerful magnets spaced every foot or so. Or maybe some tires thrown up on the roof LOL (seems to work in trailer parks).

But I'm trying to make it as robust as reasonably possible, to minimize any relative movement between the two buildings. I went with 4x6 poles spaced 90" apart, cemented 4ft into the ground. I was welding up lattice roof trusses with 12" web but they proved to be so labor intensive that they aren't worth the effort. I've abandoned them in favor of dual back-to-back 6" steel purlins. The extra cost is more than made up for in recovered man-hours even considering the $480 in steel I spent for the truss material.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Looks ambitious. Shop looks like mine excpept you have WAY more free bench and floor space. lol

 

[strantor]

Looks ambitious. Shop looks like mine excpept you have WAY more free bench and floor space. lol

Shop space is like money or women's shoes. There's never enough, no matter how much you have. I could have a 50,000sf shop built today and have it too full to walk through in just a few years.

 

[mwayne]

Mr. President is washing out my google search results on this topic. I'm trying to google things like "tax law on walls that go to the ground" and all the results I get are about the Trump border wall.

I'm in TX as well. If there's a substantial taxable difference between bringing my walls all the way to the ground or not, then I might consider making a change.

Do you happen to know if it makes a difference whether there are all-the-way-to-the-ground walls on 4 sides vs 3 sides vs 2 sides?

Any buzzword suggestions for further research would be appreciated. I'm notoriously bad at thinking of what specific words to search to get relevant results.

Did a little looking into it, it appears to be a county by county interpretation. So you may want to check with your local appraisal district to see what you can do.