Welcome to Ask the Pole Barn Guru – where you can ask questions about building topics, with answers posted on Mondays. With many questions to answer, please be patient to watch for yours to come up on a future Monday segment. If you want a quick answer, please be sure to answer with a “reply-able” email address.
Email all questions to: PoleBarnGuru@HansenPoleBuildings.com
DEAR POLE BARN GURU: We need a combination horse barn and large arena and two homes. We are in central Oregon. Can you give us a rough estimate of how long it would take to set these buildings up? PAMELA IN COTTAGE GROVE
DEAR PAMELA: By “set these buildings up”, I will take a leap and assume you are looking at construction timeframes. Once you have established clear level sites to build upon, if you are doing the work yourself a good rule of thumb is to take the cost of our kit package materials and divide by 60 to get the number of person hours it will take the average people without prior construction experience to assemble. Professional post frame building erectors will normally be two to three times as fast.
DEAR POLE BARN GURU: I have been looking through your web site and I am a bit confused. Do you offer a service to draft plans for a building to code in a specific area without the purchase of a pole barn kit or is your talk of the plans throughout the web site only for the plans that come with a kit that is purchased? Thank you. RICK
DEAR RICK: Thank you for your interest and for perusing our website. Although lengthy, this will give you a thorough answer.
The first thing to do is visit your Planning Department, they will give you the answers as to how large a building you can construct, and where.
Here is more information: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/blog/2013/01/planning-department-3/
Once you have talked with them, contact your Hansen Pole Buildings’ Designer who can work with you to determine the best design solution.
Your Building Designer can further guide you through your Building Department requirements. With your confirmed Design Requirements and engineer sealed plans, we guarantee you will be able to obtain a structural Building Permit.
Many companies, such as ours, do not sell “just pole barn plans”.
Why? Many reasons.
- We have streamlined our process for efficiency. This means by the time you get your plans, we are far into a ton of series of steps happening concurrently – and have done much of the “work”….which has a cost. People are willing to pay an architect several thousand dollars for house plans, but they are unwilling to pay an appropriate amount for the work involved to produce truly custom pole building plans.
- You get the plans from us, but decide to purchase your materials “elsewhere” and then are disappointed because you paid a lot more than you thought it was going to cost.
- Worst of all, you purchase materials which don’t match the pole barn plans from someone else and your building contractor does not build to our plans and blame us when the Building Department won’t sign off on your building.
Why do we know all of this? Been there. Done that. And we do guarantee if you do your homework and communicate clearly with your Planning Department and us, you WILL get a permit.
And why plans for permit are not free: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2015/10/free-building-plans/
DEAR POLE BARN GURU: Can you tell me if they make a wider Ridge Cap? Unfortunately my partner who was working the eave string line didn’t keep track of it on the one side of the roof installation and I have more overhang on the eave than I should therefore not enough at the top.
Thanks for the information. SCOTT IN DULLES
DEAR SCOTT: Those things do happen every once in a while. Luckily, the steel companies can make custom width ridge caps in nearly any width desired up to around three feet (trust me, you would not want one this large, as it would oil can). Just let us know what you need.
