dropstop condensation control Archives

This week the Pole Barn Guru answers reader questions about condensation control in Spokane, WA, the availability of a hipped roof design to meet wind and snow loads, and planning for a post frame build on a sloped site.

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: I’m in Spokane, WA– a semi-arid region, and I had a question about using metal roof panels with prefabbed integral condensation control, such as Condenstop, along with a double bubble reflective barrier. I have a few left over rolls of the reflective barrier that I can use and would only need to buy an extra roll or two for our prospective 36×36 post frame building. Would it be ok to use both without trapping moisture between the 2? Or, should I only use 1? Building will have continuous soffit venting on both eaves and ridge venting as well. The building will be used in-part to store food-crop and will be temperature-controlled during all seasons, and has drywalled ceilings. Therefore, I’d like to insulate to the max. Was thinking spray foam between the purlins and also fiberglass batts? MATT in SPOKANE

DEAR MATT: I was born and raised in Spokane, owned a house on Newman Lake until just a couple of years ago. In the 1990’s I was the area’s most prolific post frame builder – one year we erected over 200 post frame buildings in Spokane county alone!

Let’s look at doing this right, and not spend money just to spend money.

Spokane is Climate Zone 5A. 2021 International Energy Conservation Code requirements (IECC) are R-60 roof, R-30 walls

Roof: 16″ raised heel trusses, vent overhangs and ridge in correct proportion, roof steel with Integral Condensation Control, blow in R-60 of granulated Rockwool.

Sell your reflective barrier on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace.

Walls: Steel siding, Weather Resistant Barrier (Tyvek or similar), 2×8 commercial bookshelf girts, R-30 Rockwool batts, well-sealed vapor barrier.

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: In your blog you state that hip roof style the strongest against high winds. as I live in tornado alley wind and snow drifting are concerns of mine and would like my building design to be highly resistant to these forces. Why can I not find examples of this roof style on your web site? Is the gambrel style the closest you come to this design? CARY in RAYMOND

DEAR CARY: Very few clients have been willing to make an extra investment into full hip roofs, explaining why our website has no photos of them (we do rely upon our clients to provide photos). We can engineer traditional (and most cost effective) gable roof designs with wind speeds in excess of 200 mph. Our Building Designers can incrementally adjust design wind speeds to allow you to make decisions to best meet your concerns and budget.

While most roof truss manufacturers meet Code requirements for unbalanced (drift) snow loads, we are one of few (if not only) building providers who also design roof purlins appropriately to resist these same loads. This typically results in purlins closest to ridge to be either more closely spaced and/or larger in dimensions.

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: We purchased property in north central Tennessee and are planning a post frame barn for a RV and SUV storage and then later adding a post frame home as our forever home. Building site has about a 5 – 10 degree slope. Can you recommend some reading material, books, articles, how-to’s that I can learn and start making some educated research and decisions? thanks. JEFFREY in PRAIRIEVILLE

DEAR JEFFREY: A plethora of options are available for sloped sites. They can be excavated to create a “walk-out” or “daylight” situation. I was faced with this situation on one of my personal buildings (albeit with a more extreme slope): https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2019/05/solving-massive-pole-building-grade-changes/
Sites can also be built up: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2020/01/supporting-fill-when-considerable-grade-change-exists/
And there is always an option of “stilts” https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2020/03/stilt-home-barndominium/
For research, a great source of information is always to navigate to www.HansenPoleBuildings.com, go to SEARCH in upper right corner, type in whatever topic you are looking for information on (e.g. BARNDOMINIUM) and hit ENTER. Over 2000 articles are available, covering a broad myriad of subject matter.

Whatever route you do ultimately pick, fully engineered post frame is likely to be your most cost effective and energy efficient structural design solution.

Eight Nifty Tricks to Save Money When Building a Pole Barn (reprised)

This is Part II of a two part series on pole barn savings through material and feature choices. Bret Buelo of Wick Buildings® wrote an article by this title last year, some of the items I agree with, some not so much. This is my “take” on his points. If you missed the first part – back up one day and read the first 4 points. To continue…

“5. Install a sliding door. They’re less costly than overhead garage doors or hydraulic doors for equipment access doors that you don’t use frequently.

And today’s slide doors, even large ones, are much easier to open and close than your Dad’s old slide door due to improvements in tracks, trolleys, materials and construction techniques.”

While sliding door systems have improved immensely, for most people the lack of convenience and security does not outweigh the savings. For horse barns or purely agricultural structures, they might very well be the best solution. As for cost, relatively small sized overhead doors can actually be less expensive than sliding doors. Overhead doors can also be provided as insulated and electric operators are reasonably added. For those in snow country, having to shovel the snow away for those frozen door tracks on a sliding door is still an obstacle, while an overhead door rolls right up the tracks.

“6. Use DripStop for condensation control. To prevent condensation from forming or dripping on high-end equipment, purchase DripStop.

It’s not an insulation, yet it effectively controls condensation in non-insulated buildings. It works well for mini warehouses, animal confinement or any cold-storage building in which you wish to deter moisture from dripping on your stuff.

DripStop can potentially save you thousands of dollars in comparison to using ceiling insulation.”

Steel roofing is prone to issues involving condensation. DripStop is not going to be as cost effective (from a material only standpoint) as reflective insulation: (https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/blog/2011/11/reflective-insulation/).

Where the savings is going to come from is in labor, read more about this here: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/blog/2014/07/condenstop/

“7. Choose an interior liner system over a drywall finish. A good tip for many buildings; adding a steel flushwall liner system interior to your building can be much less expensive than finishing your building with drywall.

You’ll get a durable interior without all the hassle of hanging and finishing drywall.”

I am going to disagree with this design solution entirely. Ever try to hang a cabinet or a shelf on walls with a steel liner? And steel liner ceilings have some of their own issues: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/blog/2013/08/steel-liner-panels/

As to costs, I checked today’s prices at The Home Depot® where ½” USG Sheetrock® is 27 cents per square foot. Steel liner panels 95 cents per square foot. I’d really like to see where the savings is in his argument.

“8. Weigh your options on soundproofing materials. Some people will install a sound-absorbing ceiling material, but that isn’t always the most cost-effective option to reduce noise.

A perforated steel liner with insulation behind it can be a better way to reduce noise, especially in commercial and shop environments.”

From over 16,000 buildings of experience, sound-absorption is way down the list of priorities. In only a single case have I been involved in a project with perforated steel liner panels. It happened to have been specified by an architect who didn’t know better (most possibly it was a result of being influenced by a particular builder who pushed the product). It was to be installed over 7/16” OSB, in a situation which would often result in the liner panels being hosed down with water…..which would go through the perforations…..getting the OSB wet. Anyone other than me seeing potential problems with this as a design solution?

In a future article – I’ll highlight some of my own pole barn savings “tricks” and advice for a new post frame building. Stay tuned!

Tag Archives: dropstop condensation control

Condensation Control, Load Requirements, and A Sloped Site

Pole Barn Savings Part II

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