Here’s How I Did It The full title of the book is, “Here’s How I Did It! World’s Top Experts Share Their Stories, Insights and Perspectives” by Raam Anand. It is available at Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Heres-How-Did-Insights-Perspectives-ebook/dp/B00OUVDFL6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1415731572&sr=8-2&keywords=Here%27s+How+I+Did+It As Mike the Pole Barn Guru, I’m highly flattered to have been selected to author a chapter in Volume II […]

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” […]

Michael Perry is a Wisconsin author, humorist and intermittent pig farmer. Below I have excerpted from his November 10, 2014 article in the Wisconsin State Journal, “Weather just might call for a torpedo heater”. For more about Michael Perry’s work see www.sneezingcow.com “Nothing captures the changing seasons like that moment when your cousin the carpenter […]

When the Requests Are Interesting My encouragement to potential clients is to share with us your troubles and your goals – and let us structurally design for you the best solution which is a marriage between wants, needs, budget and available space. Finding happiness in a new building, is much akin to success at finding […]

Sometimes Things Just Don’t Go Right When one really thinks about it – given the literal thousands of hands the components which become a completed pole building have to go through, it is a miracle anything ever gets done! With all of the pieces and parts and all of the human potentiality factor added in, […]

Amish Speed Barn Raising All of us seem to be captivated by “speed building” videos. Heck, I even got into it back in 1996, when my company set a world record for the fastest site built two-car garage: (https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/blog/2011/06/fastest-pole-building-ever-constructed/)!The Mother Nature Network has an Amish barn raising video up, which has become somewhat of an […]

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” […]

How to Calculate Fascia Trim Dimensions Justine (aka Hansen Pole Buildings’ wizard of deliveries) and I were discussing this subject today, so it makes for a good time to share! In most cases, pole buildings with sidewall (eave) overhangs have fascia boards. These are most generally 2×6, 2×8, etc., depending upon snow loads as well […]

In the Jungle, The Mighty Jungle…. The only “wimoweh” in this article is now out of the way, and no further mention will be made to the Solomon Linda tune which was originally composed only in Zulu. You have the song caught in your head now, don’t you? Jungles are not only in Africa. In […]

You Want To Add What to Your Building? For the most part, adding random extra framing members to a new pole building kit package is not a big deal. There is at least one crucial exception – which could result in a catastrophic collapse if included. We go to great extremes to supply original pole […]

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” […]

As a pole building “newbie” the first pole building I constructed back in the Spring of 1981 happened to be a 20 foot by 36 foot three sided loafing shed – with a single slope roof. As a builder, I didn’t make much money on it, as basically my head was still caught up in […]

Builders – Paying for Convenience Most of us are fairly willing to pay a few extra dollars for convenience. We know it costs us an extra dollar a gallon for milk at the C-Store, but it was right there, we didn’t have to drive two minutes out of our way, find a parking spot, and […]

My loyal readers know I grew up flying small planes (read more about my adventures at https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/blog/2013/09/hangar-n3407s/). Growing up in a flying household meant the Wright Brothers were highly revered. I’d always wondered why it is two brothers from Dayton, Ohio ended up making history at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. I had my first experience […]

Pitch Breaks – Steep to Flatter – The Why and How to Avoid Them I can hear it in the background already, “You just taught us how to do them correctly, now you want us to avoid them?” Yep…and here is why… More costly (see also #2 below) More labor (because there are more pieces […]

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” […]

How to: Pitch Break from Steeper to Flatter with Steel Roofing Pitch breaks occur at a transition between steeper (towards peak) and flatter roof slopes (towards the eave). Exercising care, this will be a painless and leak free area. Lots of things are going to occur at the junction between the two roofs. In order […]

Innovation Requires Failure Recently I read a Harvard Business Review article written by Dorie Clark which contained this, which spoke to me: “Recognize that innovation requires failure. In a world where competitive advantage is increasingly short-lived, as Columbia Business School professor Rita Gunther McGrath has described, successful companies have to bake innovation into their standard […]

When Plans Examiners Try to Apply the “CODE” to Pole Buildings Today’s example happens to come from the State of Michigan, however it could happen in any Building Permit issuing jurisdiction in the U.S. What is most interesting to me about this particular example is, last November I was invited to be a presenter at […]

Galvanic Corrosion with Aluminum Soffits John Minor was introduced to me by his father-in-law, my now long deceased partner, Rod Sevy back in 1993. A personable young man, John went to work for us selling pole buildings and became quickly both successful and knowledgeable. With a bit of wanderlust in his system, among those John […]

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 One Simple Secret to Pole Buildings Which Stand Up HINT: It has nothing to do with how it is built! Regardless of what anyone pays for a new pole building, whether investing in a complete kit package, piece mealing it together, or having it constructed – the general idea is to have the building […]

How Do I Make It Taller? One of our clients called in earlier today as his builder is beginning construction of his new pole building kit package. He has invested in a 14’ eave height building, and while his tallest door is 10 feet high, he has now decided it may be important to have […]

Does Anyone Else See How This Could Be a Problem? Eric, one of the owners of Hansen Pole Buildings, had me check out a website today for a pole building supplier who is extolling the virtues of a particular “nailed up” laminated column, which has been the subject of some discussion in my articles. https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/blog/2014/04/titan-timbers/ […]

This question was posed to Justine, who gets everyone’s wonderful materials to their pole building sites for Hansen Buildings: “Justine, pardon me for being confused but: If the tops of glulam posts were manufactured that way to allow cutting, why are they not all that way?  There is no rhyme or reason to them. Some […]