Elevated Floors, Snow Loads, and Species of Wood in Posts

This week the Pole Barn Guru answers questions about elevated floors, heavy snow loads, and what species of lumber posts are cut from.

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: We own a site that was fully treed so the soil is not so great. We are interested in doing a pole barn design however a few engineers recommend doing a pier and beam foundation. Do you have details that would allow the house finished floor to be elevated off the soils to create a typical crawl space? JOHN in AZLE

DEAR JOHN: A quick answer would be YES! Post frame (pole) buildings are ideal as homes over a crawl space. For more reading about this subject, please check out: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2013/03/crawl-space/.

 

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: Can the Hansen pole barns be designed/built to 100 or 120 pound snow loads? CHUCK in WALLACE

DEAR CHUCK: Hansen Pole Buildings can be designed for any snow load you desire. Over my career I’ve been involved in many high snow load post frame buildings including ski resorts (https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2014/04/2014-winter-olympics/), in Glacier National Park, and right close to you in Wallace along I-90 – you may be familiar with a large blue building occupied by Spunstrand®.

 

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: What species lumber used for the posts 16 feet long? RICH in CHICAGO

DEAR RICH: Further reading regarding popular framing lumber species can be found here: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2012/03/lumber-species/.

If you are talking about solid sawn timbers, they are most often Southern Yellow Pine (SYP) or Hem-Fir (primarily Western U.S.). With glu-laminated columns, most manufacturers use #1 SYP for pressure preservative treated portions and 1650 msr Spruce-Pine-Fir for uppers. For more information about msr lumber, please read https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2012/12/machine-graded-lumber/.

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *