Lauri is one of the newer members to the Building Design team at Hansen Pole Buildings. Pole buildings, while having the appearance of being fairly simple, are actually remarkably complex structures and involve the proper interaction of literally thousands of components. Due to this, it is not surprising for a question to come up, which […]

I do not set out purposefully to learn something new every day, it just seems to happen. Today, Rachel, the most senior Building Designer at Hansen Buildings asked me if I had ever heard of a slip sheet. When I inquired of her further, she advised she was looking at a set of plans for […]

When I was a general contractor constructing pole buildings, we provided a fair number of concrete slabs in buildings. We always guaranteed one thing – the floor will crack! Not the answer people wanted to hear, but it was the truth. Concrete may be the longest lasting and most economical building material of all time. […]

I have been asked this question more than a few times, by potential do-it-yourselfers, who are considering constructing their own buildings. Jeff, one of the Building Designers at Hansen Pole Buildings, got asked this very same question again yesterday. I am certain most people ask this question, as they are considering how to go about […]

Yesterday I was having an ongoing discussion with a client about concrete finishing and his budget. From Elko, Nevada, the client was weighing whether he should hire a contractor to “turnkey” his new 30’ x 40’ pole building, or to construct it himself. In this instance, turnkey would include providing the design and materials, constructing […]

A raised heel truss is much like it sounds: the heel of a conventional metal plated roof truss, where the bottom chord intersects with (and bears on) the perimeter pole building wall columns and is fitted with a vertical member which literally raises the top chord of the truss. Now this is nothing new. Back […]

Steel roofed post frame buildings are not required to have ice and water shields installed beneath them (International Building Code – Section 1507.4).  However for most other types of roofing it is definitely a consideration, or even a requirement. IBC Section 1507.2.8.2 requires ice dam protection in areas where the average daily temperature in January […]

My maternal grandfather passed away at age 82, back in December 1990. Now the grandparents had been married for nearly 60 years, but grams still had lots of life in her. In 1991 Grandma Jerene started dating a widower from her church, Bob. Bob was a retired meteorologist – he had run the National Weather […]

We were at a vendor event for the DirectBuy in Beaverton, Oregon when a member approached us looking for advice on how to seal an existing concrete floor in her pole barn. It seems the floor is always damp. I’ve always recommended placing an insulated vapor barrier beneath any new interior concrete floor. I’ve had […]

I’ve designed probably a thousand indoor riding arenas in the past three decades. One thing I have never heard from a client is – my riding arena is just too big! As I have heard my lovely bride tell hundreds of people – the cost of building is having four corners, once you have them, […]

Happy 4th of July! On holidays, I take a day to relax, and “re-run” some of my most highly read blogs.  From over a year ago, today’s subject has been viewed close to 8,000 times.  Yes, that’s 8 thousand. So here you go, for what I consider one of the hottest topics in pole building […]

I will confess….I have never ridden a horse. My daughter Bailey has more than averaged out the hours for me, as she has probably logged at least an entire year of 24 hour days in the saddle over the past decade. I’ve been in countless riding arenas and have yet to see posted riding rules […]

My daughter Bailey is a professional horse trainer in Canby, Oregon (blatant plug for her here – https://www.baileymombtraining.com). Last weekend I watched her, and horses and riders she trains, at the TWHEAO (Tennessee Walking Horse Exhibitor’s Association of Oregon) Summer Extravaganza in McMinnville, Oregon. Own a horse or horses, ride frequently and don’t have an […]

I once heard an anecdotal story about a man who had a choice to stand in one of two lines – for brains, or trains. He had always wanted to be an engineer, so he picked the line for trains…. OK, so it wasn’t necessarily funny. If you’ve ever been involved with a commercial building, […]

If you didn’t read the last two days’ blogs, Part I and II of a three part series on how to design a woodworking shop, I’d advise you to back up a day or two and read them. To finish up on how to best design your woodworking shop… Design your building with adequate electric […]

If you didn’t read yesterday’s blog, Part I of a three part series on woodworking shops, I’d advise you to back up a day and read it, as it’s the “start” in terms of figuring out how to design your new shop. To continue… Think in terms of “workflow.” Can some of the infeed/outfeed spaces […]

A popular use for many of our pole buildings is for woodworking. Bob, one of our Building Designers, suggested some hints as to how to set up a woodworking shop might be a good idea for a blog. Some of our clients have the space and budget to be able to construct elaborate workspaces in […]

For those of you who have ever taken a DiSC profile, you will understand when I tell you I am a high “I” personality. We high “I” people, we love a show – I love magicians. I don’t know how they do it, but I love the show. I will watch them over and over […]

We get frequent requests from clients to not only design interior non-structural stud walls, but to also provide the materials for these walls. In a word – no. But why not? From a design standpoint, the most likely walls to be moved around are interior ones. Chances are good where the walls are planned, and […]

Recently I wrote a blog post about Low-E windows. So Mrs. Guru, being an inquiring soul, read it, and wanted to know if our windows were gas filled. Why would anyone want to fill the space between panes of window glass to begin with? Well, as air transfers heat quickly, specific gases are used between […]

I’m a member of several discussion groups on LinkedIn. For those of you who are unfamiliar, LinkedIn is a business-oriented social site, used mainly for professional networking. One of the discussion groups is titled simply as “Builder”. A recent posting for discussion was, “What can be done to change the negative image builders get when […]

I’m not talking about roofs that look “cool”. Cool roofs are the roofs which deliver both high solar reflectance and thermal emittance. Solar reflectance is the ability to reflect the visible, infrared and ultraviolet wave lengths of the sun, reducing heat transfer to the building. Thermal emittance is the ability to radiate absorbed, or non-reflected solar energy. […]

Any time my readers get to thinking I have linked every possible subject beyond reason to pole buildings; I try to one up myself. Which brings us to Fibonacci…. Leonardo Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician who lived from about 1170 to 1250. He is best known for a number sequence named the Fibonacci numbers, which […]

If there is one thing I have learned in three decades plus of providing pole building kits, it is this – the hardest people to please, are builders. This pat on the back, from a builder, was so good we felt the need to share the bruises we have from it. Rachel, our most senior […]

In the past three plus decades I’ve literally sold tens, if not hundreds of thousands of sliding doors as well as steel sectional overhead doors. At Hansen Pole Buildings, we get hundreds of new inquiries every day – many of these are for people who are requesting sliding “barn” style doors, for the most part […]