In September of 2011, one of the Hansen Pole Buildings Designers – Steve, quoted a proposed pole building to be built in Oakland County, Michigan. To be used to cover four indoor baseball batting cages, the building quoted was to be 50 feet wide, 80 feet long with a 20 foot sidewall. Among its features was a full hipped roof (in lay person’s terms, it slopes in all four directions) and vinyl siding. The pole building would include two eight foot wide by 10 foot tall insulated overhead doors, a three foot wide commercial steel insulated entry door, a vented polycarbonate ridge cap as well as a 10 foot x 30 foot second floor with stairs.

How much is it?

Designed to withstand a C wind exposure, the delivered price in 2011 was $33,218.

The client calls today, pretty well prepared to order his “baseball” pole building, until he realizes our price is for a kit package, as opposed to the other prices he has been getting, which include labor and are about $36,000 and up.

Is it what he really NEEDS?

Time to get down to serious talking…..what is the real solution to the problems at hand (also known as, what are the other people quoting)?

While the 50’x80’ part seems to work, the height only needs to be 16’. Big difference right there, as the calculations for the strength of the columns needed to support a building involve the square of the height. 20 squared being 400, 16 squared is 256 – the 20’ tall building has 156% of the wind load on the columns, compared to the 16’ tall!

Looks nice…but necessary?

Full hip roof lines, while they may be esthetically pleasing, get to be fairly pricey when it comes to a 50 foot clearspan…..it turns out a gabled roof will more than meet the needs.

The vinyl siding – same issue as the full hip roof.

With a few other adjustments, the pole building (even with today’s sky high lumber prices) is just over $21,000!!!

Oh, the Exposure C for wind (a site open to the wind in one or more directions)? While I am not a gambling man, there is a pretty fair chance everyone else quoted Exposure B (a site protected from the wind in all directions). At the 90 mph (miles per hour) design wind speed, the Exposure C building has to withstand a wind force nearly 50% greater than Exposure B.

Show me an apple…not a rock

The bottom line….shopping for a pole building and really want to compare apples and apples? Email any other quotes to us; we will compare them item for item and feature for feature – for free.

If there is indeed a better buy, on an identical or better building, we’ll let you know.  It has never happened yet.