Buying a Used Pole Building

40’ x 60’ Used Pole Building – $14000 (Silverton)  SERIOUSLY?

The following ad appeared in the Salem, Oregon Craigslist December 6, 2016 in for sale > farm & garden – by owner:

“I have a nice fully enclosed 14 foot tall pole building. It is fully disassembled and ready for transport. All the metal is fully galvanized. The building has a clear span with 4 double trusses and framed ends.”

Now, the ten top reasons why buying this used pole building would be so wrong:

#10 It is all galvanized steel – generally most folks do not find this to be aesthetically pleasing!

#9 You are going to have to pick it up and transport it – plan on a semi pulling at least a 40 foot long trailer, because those trusses are 40 feet long! Might be handy to have either a boom truck or a forklift there to hoist everything onto the trailer;

#8 And unload it when it gets to your site – some offloading equipment could be handy here;

#7 It isn’t designed to current Building Codes – so you cannot get a permit to erect it – Oregon DOES have an agricultural exemption which you might qualify for. Don’t even consider putting it up without a permit unless you are 100% certain it is exempt;

#6 The wall girts flat to the wind on the outside of the columns – they will overly deflect (again not meeting the Building Code);

#5 Plywood gussets on the trusses – even if your seller has the engineered drawings for them, they are not going to meet the current Building Code;

#4 There is no lateral truss bracing – as the trusses are on each side of the columns are acting as single trusses. At a bare minimum, they will need a row of 2×4 “T” bracing no more than 10 feet on center;

#3 The wood framed sliding door is going to be heavy – and it probably has square barn door tracks. You may want to replace it with a steel framed sliding door and a round track so it is light enough and easy enough to roll open and closed;

#2 Sure hope you can get all of the steel back in the exact same places – because if you are unable to, there is a good chance you will experience roof leaks;

And the #1 reason – For about $3,000 more, you could get a brand new post frame building designed to meet the building code, with all new materials, delivered to your site, with all colored steel roofing and siding PLUS engineered plans!

2 thoughts on “Buying a Used Pole Building

  1. So what if it happens to be a Hansen pole building? Never erected. Delivery started before I had the blue prints to even start the permit process to even know what we are looking at for drainage and fill. Complete kit ready for someone today without 10 different delivery dates to be available for?

    Reply
    1. Never erected is not used. Deliveries began because the invoices you approved have this language, “Client agrees to take materials as soon as possible after order unless noted otherwise”. Here is a summary of your deliveries from your Project Coordinator: 2- lumber deliveries due to missing items and some overage- 2 truss visits due to her refusing delivery 1st time because she claimed she wasn’t ready but didn’t return their call, 1 steel delivery but she had site issues and driver worked it out, 1 hardware delivery, 1 sliding door delivery = 7, not 10.

      Reply

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