This week the Pole Barn Guru answers reader questions about our “best guess at price per square…” for a Hansen Building Kit, spacing for scissor trusses, and if there is a national code for post spacing in a barndominium. DEAR POLE BARN GURU: What is your best guess at price per square foot range materials […]

What Hansen Pole Buildings Offers for Prospective Barndominium Owners If you are considering building a barndominium or shouse (shop/house), whether DIY or with a contractor’s involvement, there is one very important question to ask: “Do you personally live in a barndominium?” If you do not receive a resounding, “YES” for an answer, you may want […]

A Wednesday Edition of PBG! Bonus Round! Home finishes, Color Samples, and Cupola Framing. DEAR POLE BARN GURU: Do you also finish out the home, not just the shell? DONNA in LEXINGTON DEAR DONNA: Hansen Pole Buildings are designed to be constructed DIY by average physically capable folks who will read directions. Many of our clients […]

Cool roofs are roofing systems creating higher solar reflectance and thermal emittance than standard roofing products. Solar reflectance is a process where a roof reflects the sun’s UV and infrared rays, reducing the total amount of heat transferred to a building or home. Thermal emittance is a roof’s ability to radiate absorbed and non-reflected solar […]

Adding on to post frame building length sounds like it should be such a simple process – unscrew sheets of steel and just build away, right? Nope. Long time reader ROB in ANNAPOLIS writes: “I feel like you have answered this somewhere in the past, but when I search past “Ask the Guru” I get […]

Steel Roofing Fade and Chalk 14 years ago Hansen Pole Buildings provided a post frame building kit package to a client in South Carolina. Included with this investment was steel roofing and siding to be provided by Fabral with 20 year warranty paint. Colors were Evergreen roofing and trim and Tan siding. We actually provided […]

When I first wrote about crinkle finish steel roofing and siding, just over two years ago, I suspected there would be at least one in ten clients who would actually order it right away. This is a fairly given percentage of folks who always go with latest and greatest trends – they embrace cutting edge […]

Avoiding Pulling a Building Permit? You have a densely treed rural location or have no neighbors, so you have made a decision to avoid pulling a building permit for your new post frame building. Think again – YOU. WILL. BE. CAUGHT. All too often we hear from clients who invested in Hansen Pole Building kits […]

The Pole Barn Guru answers questions bout heating a pole barn, sliding door parts, and a replacement panel for a Hansen Building. DEAR POLE BARN GURU: Many years ago I had a friend that made a good income renting heated storage space in a very large pole barn to boat owners.  He complained of the heating […]

See yesterday’s blog for Part I. To continue the discussion on Use and Occupancy: Momentarily skipping a few chapters and going to Chapter 6 (because it would be too simple if the IBC was in order) the code book outlines different types of construction. Post frame buildings can fall under the following construction types: The […]

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: Do you do business with zip code 33478? I like to explore Pole Barn homes but with the strict hurricane code, I was not sure if you are allowed to do business with South Florida. PATTY in JUPITER FARM DEAR PATTY: Hansen Pole Buildings has provided post frame buildings in every […]

Maximizing the Metal: Why Not all Metal is Created Part II This article, by my friend Sharon Thatcher, was originally published in the September 2016 issue of Rural Builder magazine and appears unedited. To continue from last Friday: THE IMPORTANCE OF PAINT While paint doesn’t provide any structural value, it certainly does add value to the end […]

Arborvitae Green To my friends Jim Betonte, the Oglevie Brothers (Mike, Doug and Randy) and Kimron Leach – this blog’s for you! Somewhere about 35 million years ago the Willamette River of Oregon was created by plate tectonics. A few miles to the south of what was Willamette Falls, the river makes a sharp bend, […]

Back in the early days of my career in the pole (post frame) building industry, the great majority of pole building windows were single glazed (one pane of glass) in anodized aluminum frames. These were several things, none of which would be associated with high quality, all of which were about low price. It wasn’t […]

Kynar® One word says it all – Kynar®. I could extol the aesthetic reasons to use Kynar® painted steel for longer than anyone would be willing to listen. Polyvinylidene fluoride is acknowledged as the premium resin for coil coatings. Popularly known by its original trade name Kynar®, is a PVDF resin-based coating or finish, a […]

Red, white, blue, green, gold, beige and brown. When I was first in the pole building industry, these were the color choices. While they may sound rather limited, given the palette of availabilities today – it was a huge improvement over the original color – bare galvanized! These early colors had a commonality – they […]

When I went off to architecture school at the University of Idaho in 1975, I needed a vehicle which would be a little better suited to the weekly commute from Post Falls to Moscow. My 1964 Datsun pickup (they were really tiny then) had been OK for motoring around town in high school – but […]

In the case of most pole buildings – doors are an important feature. As long as they open and close as expected, most people really don’t give much, if any thought to them. Overhead doors offer many things which other door choices do not. Here are some things which are all too often not considered […]

Like many things, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I recently saw a photo of a McMansion in Florida, valued at eight figures, with a galvanized steel roof. Personally, I thought it looked pretty darn nice (as did the architect, builder and home owner apparently). What got me going on this subject was […]

Yesterday I started talking a little bit about one of the hardest things to choose on a building – colors. This is one of those subjects where I feel totally out of my element, but because we get so many folks asking “what color should I choose for….?”, I feel I can share some of […]

If we are going out for an evening on the town, my wife won’t let me pick the clothes I am going to wear.  While I am sure it has something to do with my inability to match colors, even I sometimes wonder about colors people choose for their pole buildings. Several years ago we […]