I’ve spoken a lot about the re-purposing of pole buildings for uses other than what was originally intended. Barns become homes, shops, businesses, etc. Here is one which I had never considered, from an October 25, 2015 article first published in www.dailyitem .com and written by Eric Scicchitano (photo by author). “A motorist was flung […]

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” […]

You have gone to great lengths to get every detail right in your new post frame home. You chose the right company for the design and to provide the plans and materials, the right finishes and colors. But have you chosen the right structural wood components? Are they protected from the threat of fungus, rot and […]

When I ran the prefabricated metal connector plated truss manufacturing plant for Lucas Plywood and Lumber in Salem, Oregon – one of the better framing contractors in town was a builder named Scott Rose. Scott was reliable, did great work and was very reasonably priced with a caveat…..he claimed his middle name was “extra”. As […]

October 17, 1989 at 5:04 p.m. Pacific time, I was the owner of M & W Building Supply Company in Canby, Oregon. At the same time, one of our sales people – Randy Oglevie, was talking on the phone to one of his clients in the San Francisco Bay area. Randy’s client was standing out […]

Why We Don’t Give Out Free Building Plans for Obtaining a Building Permit If I had a dollar for every client (or prospective client) who asked if we would supply them with free building plans to obtain their building permits, I could, at the very least, take a great vacation. I’ve warned people in the past […]

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” […]

The vinyl windows for your new pole building are delivered and upon inspecting them you find small square holes on the exterior frames of them. While the first thought may be, “Won’t those little holes let cold air in (or warm air out), the reality is these are the window’s weep holes. They are designed and […]

Winds and Stick Frame Construction This first appeared at www.ValleyNewsLive.com on Monday Oct. 12, 2015: “High winds caused a building under construction to fall in Fargo Monday. Parts of a building in the 300-block of 39th Street south, near the Flying J truck stop, fell apart after 1:00 p.m. Monday. City building inspectors say they […]

SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels) are nothing new. The idea for using stress skinned panels began in the depression era with research and testing done primarily by Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, as part of an USFS (United States Forest Service) attempt to conserve forest resources. Engineers from Forest Products Laboratory weren’t the only ones […]

Snow Load Duration Factor Wood is a natural, fibrous non-homogeneous material.  Because of this wood has several unique characteristics.  One of these properties is duration of load.  This is the ability of wood to resist higher stresses when loads are applied for a short duration of time.  In other words, wood has a higher strength […]

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” […]

I’m a pretty calm guy. It takes a lot to get a fire stoked under me, but the City of Williston, North Dakota could eventually get me there. And here is why…. The Williston city commissioners are considering making a pole building moratorium on any new metal or pole structures permanent. In my humble opinion, […]

Judy Hansen is a Registered Nurse, who generally worked in smallish hospitals in the area around Browns Valley, MN. Primarily working in or being a nurse manager for 24 years – she pretty well did it all, including delivering her share of little ones into the world. One of her favorite positions was working at […]

My only sibling, younger brother Mark, spent years in the construction industry. Among them were being top selling Building Designer at M & W Building Supply (when I owned it) in Canby, Oregon  and my partner in the post frame (pole) building construction business at Momb Building Systems. Mark is pretty sharp at keeping his […]

The answer is – yes! Back in the late 1960’s in Spokane, Washington Joseph “Joe” Mazzie started Pacific Metal Buildings. Joe is from my father and uncle’s generation and, being in construction (and living in the same general area of town) they were acquainted. Joe developed a reputation as a shrewd businessman, as well as […]

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” […]

Safe disposal of hazardous chemicals can be a challenge for businesses, residents and landfills. Plymouth County, Iowa came up with a solution, which involved the construction of an approximately 60 by 70 foot pole building. The Regional Collection Center (RCC) encompasses an about 30-by-60-foot space inside. The remaining space is for landfill storage. An about […]

Ritzville, Washington lies along the Interstate Highway between Spokane and Seattle. In the heart of wheat country, it is also home of some huge, cone shaped piles of stored wheat. For many years, I had my lovely bride convinced the wheat piles were there because Ritzville was the home of Nabisco Ritz crackers. Eventually I […]

Yesterday I started the discussion of the International Wildland-Urban Interface Code –which spells out requirements for protecting buildings in case of wildfires.  So back up a day if you missed the first part of this. To recap a bit… The International Wildland-Urban Interface Code (IWUIC) is a model code intended to be adopted and used […]

Population growth and the expanding urban development into traditionally nonurban areas have increasingly brought humans into contact with wildfires. In the decade ending with 1994, wildfires destroyed more than 9,000 homes in the United States. Generally, these homes were located in areas where structures and other human developments meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or […]

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” […]

When the Stars are Out of Alignment In post frame (pole) building construction, the stars do not have to align in order for all things to work out happily (and easily). Some things DO have to align, and an important one – at least when it comes to getting through screwed steel roofing to work […]

It Takes a Hole to Raise a Stair Or at least a hole adequate to get the stairs through to the floor above! I’m a big guy – 6’5” in my bare feet. When stairs have inadequate headroom, my forehead pays the price. When it comes to calculating adequate headroom, most people display their skills of […]

When I first began writing blog articles over four years ago, I assumed I’d get to maybe 100 topics or so, and then be out of things to write about. FAT CHANCE After 957 of them, the list of possible topics grows every day. I did a search for “stepped roofs” on our website today […]