Planning on building a pole barn in the next few months. First bids are back, meeting with Amish builder tomorrow to finish the details. Roughly 40x60x14 half for hay barn and half for work shop for the farm. I have not had good success with treated lumber even ground contact rated lumber over the years. Does anyone have any recommendations for a coating or treatment class of lumber I need to request for my posts? Builder friend of mine said a coat of foundation tar over the treated poles before concreting them in place will help a lot. Won’t pour concrete floor in workshop 1/2 until spring at the earliest. Thinking about putting a floor drain(s) in instead of sloping the whole floor to the doors. I know there is no such thing as to much electrical and insulation but going to have to wait on them for a while. No plan on a lift but will have room for it if needed may put an extra 2” of concrete in part of one bay just in case. Overhead doors will be 10x10 and 10x8 What am I missing?
Sounds like you have a good plan! I can't help on the treated posts, I've never seen anything stuck in the ground last very long here. I'm curious to see what others say. On the lift- I did the same. I have a section that is min 8" thick to handle a lift if I ever so choose. Extra rebar too! I put a floor drain in and if I had to do it over I would have just sloped the floors. The floors have to slope to the floor drain anyway and it sometimes gets in the way. I don't spray water in my shop, so that could change things. I wish the concrete had just a little bit of texture. Something between smooth like I have and a broom finish would be idea. Run conduit throughout the pad. Think about water, electricity and data/network in the future. Best to have it and not need it. My roof is fairly thick galvanized corrugated steel like you would find in a barn, which is what it is, than a shop. Unfortunately it can leak if the rains are driven by strong winds in a particular direction. I would ask about roofing options. Hope some of this helps! Congratulations on the shop!
I have no idea about poles for buildings. But, couple of years ago I removed most of the picket fence that was here when I moved in. That fence has to be at least 20 years old, if not up to 50 years (house built in 1960). The posts had a tar coating to just above ground and they were in great shape. They went down several feet - pulling those suckers up was interesting, I was just glad the ground was somewhat soft as the fencing was in a low-lying area, right next to the drainage ditch, so that area that stayed moist.
I had a 36x56x12 put up last year by a local Amish builder. I have 3 doors that are 12Wx10H and one entry door on the east side, and a 10x10 on the north side that I use to get stuff out when I don't want to move stuff out of the 12x10 door bays...very handy. I wish I had made all the doors 12x10. I built a 16x10 hay loft and goat pen on the south side of the building with a 4x8 dutch door so they can get in and out. The dutch door turned out to be a great idea. They hay loft is floor supported so weight isn't a concern. I built another 4x48 loft along the west side of the building for general storage. I am just hanging off the lower chord of the trusses so I try to only keep light stuff up there. I just have a gravel floor topped with ag lime in the whole thing. The only insulation is the vapor barrier / radiant barrier they installed in the ceiling. Someday I may put in concrete and insulation, but I doubt it. As for footings, make sure there is proper drainage under and around the post. The guy who built mine drilled 24" holes, put in several inches of #2 white rock in the bottom of the hole, dropped in a precast concrete cookie, then backfilled everything with #2 white rock. I'm seeing more and more people put in concrete piers with post brackets. My BIL is in the process of building his shop that way.
DNH Do this if you are concerned about the poles rotting. Edit: I just saw you are in Missouri too, what region?
From my understanding the post in ground provides considerable shear strength for the building and reduces the need for diagonal bracing. Sono tubes or other concrete pier systems reduce risk of rot but then you need additional diagonal bracing. If you are going that route you might as well pour concrete and do a stick frame build. Since I had concerns builder recommended laminated post because of the better preservative penetration. And do the tar/foundation coating on them. I have a nice elevated pad site for the barn, water should not be an issue. Sawdust Man near Lebanon
My wife's son is a GC and he is building in Lebanon, MO right now... He doesn't build pole barns, just pointing out the coincidence of how close he is to you.
What is he building, hospitals and a race car shop is about all that being built right now besides some residential buildings.
NW side of town is where most of the new upscale residential developments are along with some really nice custom homes. The SE side of town is a mix of custom homes from the 80’s to 2008 with an occasional development where a farm gets subdivided. We need more housing, the local manufacturers have a monthly meeting to discuss local issues, at the top of there list is housing. Ever since 2008 not many spec houses were built putting a real squeeze on the housing supply if you want something more modern than a 1940’s-60’s 3 br 1 bath home.
His game has always been affordable housing, he only planned to be in MO for a year and to have his 10 properties built and sold. Personally, I think he overestimated the income of people in the area he is building. He is now trying to get a premanufactured home deal going and recoup the money he spent and make a small profit. He will then head back to TX where he is building a 28 house property. He also is developing a few properties in Mexico.
Have you considered metal posts, helical piers that get drilled into the ground. I don’t know anything about them but they seem like they might be a good option. Techno Metal Post Kansas City | Helical Piers
Very interesting. Thanks for the link Dave. There might be a couple of buildings going up on my properties that would benefit from this type of footing
I looked into them briefly, but our current barn build is on ledge so we had to spring for concrete footers and frost walls
DaveGunter those are pretty cool but I bet they are expensive. I don’t have anything to base it on but I suspect a footer/foundation/slab and stick built walls would be cheaper in most setting than the coils. If anyone knows a price I would love to know what they run. I considered driving a 5” pipe into the ground 8-10’ or until I couldn’t drive it any deeper then weld angle iron to it and bolt the posts on. But decided not to. Sawdust Man I spent a couple years working in Forsyth so I know the area. My family has been in the Ozarks mostly on the Missouri side but some in Arkansas since the civil war.
