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Personal Storage, Additional Height, and Floor Plans

This week the Pole Barn Guru addresses a concern about personal items being ruined by storing them in an unfinished pole building, the need for an additional two feet of interior height, and floor plans for designing a post frame home.

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: Hello- not sure if you can answer this but hoping so. We have opportunity to rent a 20’x40′ portion of a pole barn building. The rent is very reasonable to we are considering moving all the contents of 3 storage units into this building, including small remodeling business with tools and materials. Question, it’s a brand new pole building, but the owner has not enclosed the soffit at the top. Will our stuff take get ruined in there? Moisture, hot and cold temperatures, mice, etc. Thinking it’s not an ideal place to put our furniture but wanted to ask a pole barn specialist. It’s such a good deal but I don’t want our belongings to get ruined. Thank you in advance for your opinion. DONNA in SUSSEX COUNTY

DEAR DONNA: Unless this unit is as close to completely sealed as possible (other than properly screened or very tiny openings venting) you should be prepared for all sorts of small critters and insects to be joining your valuable goods. My other concerns would be first as to if there is a well sealed vapor barrier under this building’s slab on grade. If not, there will be moisture coming through into your unit. Secondly – what sort of provision has been made to prevent condensation from occurring on underside of roof steel?

 

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: I have a 40′ x 50′ x10′ pole barn, I need another 2′ in height, minimum. What is the best way to handle it? Thanks for your time JERRY in FRANKFORT

DEAR JERRY: There is only one correct way to achieve this – hire a Registered Professional Engineer who can design a structurally sound method to get to your end goal. Any other recommendation could likely result in a collapse.

 

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: Hey Mike, we are planning to build a 40×60 pole barn home with the rear 20×60 portion being a second story. The main use of this space will be a 20×20 loft in the center of the building above the kitchen, with the remaining space being storage. We are trying to figure out what a necessary side wall/eave height will have to be for this second story loft with a 4/12 pitch roof. We don’t mind sacrificing a little bit of headroom upstairs since it will be a playroom for the kids. Could you help us with this? Also, this is assuming that we have an 8’ kitchen ceiling underneath. Thanks! NATE in TULSA

DEAR NATE: Thank you for reaching out to me. In most instances it will be less expensive to add more square footage on main level than to create a partial loft space (not to mention no space wasted due to stairs). Here is a guide to creating appropriate eave heights: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2020/05/how-tall-should-my-eave-height-be-for-two-stories/.

I would recommend you take advantage of our very affordable floor plan service in order to assist you in creation of your ideal dream floor plan: http://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/post-frame-floor-plans/

This entry was posted in Pole Barn Questions, Pole Barn Design, Pole Barn Homes, Building Styles and Designs, Constructing a Pole Building, Pole Barn Planning, Post Frame Home, Barndominium, Ventilation, Shouse, Rebuilding Structures, Shouse, Building Interior, floorplans, Professional Engineer and tagged , , , , , , on by .

Column Height, a Hangar Door, and Splash Plank Boards

This week the Pole Barn Guru answers reader questions about column height for an eight foot one inch interior ceiling, what size bi-fold door for a hangar, and specific boards for a splash plank.

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: New at this. If I am building a pole barn house and want 8 ft 1 inch between slab and bottom of truss, have 4 inches of slab and 2 inches of Styro and need have top of footing at 42 inches, I come up with 145 inches. A 12 foot pole is 144. Can this work and pass code or do I need to go with a longer post.

Thanks for any help. BRADLEY in SHELBY

DEAR BRADLEY: My recommendation is for you to be building from a fully engineered set of building plans. When you are provided with a design frost depth from your Building Department, it is telling you the BOTTOM of the footing must be at or below the design frost depth.

If this was a Hansen Pole Building, our engineers would specify column holes to be 42″ deep from grade. The bottom 8″ of this hole would be filled with concrete (below the column) as part of a monopoured bottom collar. Your building footprint would be lowered two inches below grade to allow for your sub-slab insulation. Top of a nominal four inch slab will be at 3-1/2″ above grade. Normally height from top of slab to bottom of trusses to give an eight foot finished ceiling would be 8′ 1-1/8″. One thing you have not accounted for is raised heel trusses to allow for full insulation thickness from outside of wall to outside of wall. In your area we would recommend R-60 attic insulation, with 22 inch high raised heel trusses. Given this information, your columns should be 14′.

 

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: I am contemplating building a hangar, planning at this point on a 60 x 60 hangar, and wondering what the maximum opening span would be with a bi-fold door. Thanks! KEVIN in BELLAIRE

DEAR KEVIN: On each side of the hangar door your building will need what is known as a ‘braced wall panel’ of solid wall. The width of this area is limited to a maximum ratio of panel width to building eave height of 1:3.5 (as an example on a 14′ eave building would be 4′).

 

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: What boards do I use for outside band for first floor > 20ft by 40ft -6×6 posted 10 on center. JOSEPH in CLINTON

DEAR JOSEPH: First floors are at grade, so your ‘outside band’ would be called out for on your fully engineered building plans as being a pressure preservative treated splash plank of some dimension (in our case, with steel siding it will be a 2×8 treated to UC-4A or ground contact).

 

 

This entry was posted in Footings, Building Interior, Professional Engineer, Insulation, Pole Barn Questions, Pole Barn Homes, Building Styles and Designs, Pole Barn Planning, Pole Building Doors and tagged , , , , , , on by .

Building Interior Height

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

ask-the-guruDEAR POLE BARN GURU: in ordering a building that I want a 16′-0″ clearance from finish concrete to bottom of truss, what would the eave height be to accomplish this dimension? ART IN SULPHUR

DEAR ART: First it might be handy to do a review of the definition of “eave height”: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2012/03/eave_height/

In most cases, adding 3-1/2 inches for the concrete slab and six inches for the roof system are adequate. Unless you have a very wide clearspan on the trusses, an excessive wind load, or a partially enclosed building it is generally fairly safe to add a foot to the wanted interior clear height to determine the needed eave height.

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: If one plans to convert a new pole barn into a livable structure and if the county allows for a concrete stem wall, a full concrete slab or cemented posts with floors suspended 12” above grade as measured from the bottom of the floor joists, which of these options is best if budget is the biggest concern? KEITH IN DOBSON

DEAR KEITH: Anything involving large quantities of concrete is going to get expensive in a hurry.

Personally, I would prefer to have an elevated crawl space (https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2013/03/crawl-space/) as it is far more comfortable to live over and provides easy access for underfloor utilities. As long as the building columns extend below the frost line and are properly backfilled with concrete to support dead loads and prevent uplift forces everything should work well and save the unnecessary costs of a foundation (https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2011/10/buildings-why-not-stick-frame-construction/).

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: We have a home site with an existing 30’x70′ pole barn in Grant, MN. We would like to insulate it, raise the middle two (of four) garage doors to 10′ from 8′ to match the other two, replace the garage doors and entry doors, install a bathroom and utility sink, put in a concrete floor, and put a new front on it to match the house we are building. Do you do this kind of work? JON IN GRANT

DEAR JON: Thank you very much for your consideration. Hansen Pole Buildings is a supplier of custom designed pole barn kit packages only. We do not perform construction services of any sort, anywhere. You might consider placing an ad under “Gigs>Labor” on Craigslist, carefully outlining the scope of the project.

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