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” […]

Thin Hair and a Flat Forehead In my most recent past life (a.k.a the 1990’s) I was a post frame (pole) building contractor based in Spokane, Washington. At one time we had as many as 35 crews constructing buildings in six states. Even though I jokingly tell people this is why my hair is thin […]

From the Client Mailbag… Lots of good stories out there and I have been in the mode to share stories lately. Here is one which went through our Technical Support Department recently: “Today I visited the building inspector. I was confirming my intentions of building a Hansen designed structure. The reason is I already have […]

SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels) I like cool stuff. I’m never right at the front of the line for new bright shiny things – but I am close enough to check out the first few and see if the bugs are out or not. SIPs, in my humble opinion, are pretty cool stuff. I’ve never been […]

I really enjoy the Hansen Pole Buildings’ Designers. They honestly want to know, and in our industry there is a lot to know. A typical day for a Building Designer can run the gamut from the farm, to the office, home or the store as well as enjoying clients from everywhere in the country. Building […]

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” […]

There is never a dull moment in the post frame (pole) building industry. Clients are seemingly forever asking for new and different products to incorporate into their structures – which keeps life very, very interesting. Hansen Pole Buildings recently had an inquiry from a client who wants to construct a greenhouse 24’ wide by 30’ […]

Most of us have never heard of the Dunning Kruger effect. Although you may not recognize the title, there is a better than fair chance you know one or more people who are affected by it. Wikipedia defines the Dunning Kruger effect as “a cognitive bias wherein unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating […]

Hansen Pole Buildings’ Designer Bill is going to keep me on my toes! Before joining the Hansen Buildings team, Bill spent 14+ years as a Construction Project Manager for diverse projects such as commercial, industrial, institutional and medical. What little he doesn’t know, he isn’t afraid of asking. Bill posed this set of circumstances to […]

Back in the late 1970’s I was jack-of-most trades at what was then Coeur d’Alene Truss. In those days, most all roof lines were gables – peak of the roof in the center and the weather runs off two sides. One day a builder client came in and wanted a set of trusses for a […]

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” […]

Revolutionary Roof Monitor™ System Poised to Transform Market Most people have the mistaken belief International Building Code (IBC) snow loading requirements will give them a roof structure which will hold up literally forever. The truth could not be further from this belief! All buildings are categorized in the IBC by Risk Category (See https://publicecodes.cyberregs.com/icod/ibc/2012/icod_ibc_2012_16_par023.htm ) […]

Guy Wires for Pole Barns Ritchie Wallace of Wallace Brothers Construction has been assembling Hansen Pole Building kit packages in the Columbia Gorge of Washington and Oregon for at least a decade – quite a few of them for widespread purposes ranging from garages to picker cabins! Several of his completed projects grace the Hansen […]

How to Properly Vet Pole Building Suppliers Whether planning a single car garage or a post frame (pole) building larger than an acre, your hard earned money is going to be invested in it. Even if you decide a Hansen Pole Building is not the right fit for you, it is important to both the […]

All Cheese Does Not Come From Wisconsin In providing pole barn kit (post frame) packages all over the United States, we do NOT ship roof trusses from our facilities in Browns Valley, Minnesota. Hansen Pole Buildings is about being efficient for our clients, which means outsourcing components when it is the most practical solution. As […]

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” […]

When it comes to pole buildings, a diaphragm is a structural assembly – including the timber framing (truss chords and purlins), structural sheathing (e.g. plywood, metal cladding), fasteners and fastening patterns – capable of transferring in-plane shear forces through the cladding and framing members. Diaphragm action is the lateral resistance to racking of the building […]

Readers – The following is from the Dear Pole Barn Guru questions I get weekly, and the issues are so important when it comes to dealing with a contractor, I wanted to take time out to hi-light a few of them. DEAR POLE BARN GURU: I have some serious issues with a pole barn I […]

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” […]

Polycarbonate wall light panels are a very affordable way to get natural lighting into pole buildings which will not have finished interior walls. Most often (and most cost effective) is to install them at the tops of the eave sidewalls. (For more reading on polycarbonate eave lights: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/blog/2011/09/polycarbonate-eavelights-light-up-my-life/) There are some cases where it would […]

My bride tells me I spend an inordinate amount of time surfing the ‘net. She is probably right, but I surf with a goal in mind – researching topics so there are more satisfied pole building owners! I stumbled across an interesting video on “How to Fix a Sagging Pole Building” today at: https://wn.com/how_to_fix_a_sagging_pole_building Now, […]

If you are like me, you looked at this photo and the first thought was – the trim on the upper roof looks…..well frankly bad. Well it is bad, and it is bad due to installation issues, which could easily have been avoided. 1. The first trick to getting a good looking fascia, is to […]

In the Middle Ages in Europe, water quality was poor on a good day (drinking water coming from streams which were also used as places to wash clothes and…sewers). With water being pretty much undrinkable, monasteries began brewing beer to drink. The first known record of hopped beer was in the writing of a German […]

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” […]

It seems more and more people are looking towards pole buildings for their new homes. We have clients asking us nearly every day, if they can “see” the available floor plans we have for pole building houses. Unlike typical residential “plan mills” or most ‘modern’ builders, we do not have a set list of house […]