Typically post frame (pole) buildings have a pressure treated board at the base of all enclosed walls. Known also as a Bottom Girt, Grade Girt, Skirt Board or Splash Plank, it is a decay and corrosion resistant girt which is in soil contact or located near the soil surface. It remains visible from the building […]

Particulate (micronized or dispersed) copper preservative technology has recently been introduced in the USA and Europe. In these systems, the copper is ground to micro sized particles and suspended in water rather than being dissolved in a chemical reaction as is the case with other copper products such as ACQ and Copper Azole. There are […]

Most of us – both those who specify wood treating and those who use it, look upon the litany of possible wood treatments like alphabet soup. Or maybe more like Scrabble – where my 19 year old daughter always seems to either draw the right letters, or make otherwise incomprehensible words (to her Dad anyway) […]

Nail It Up, Call It a Problem Eric, one of the owners of Hansen Pole Buildings, was contacted by a prefabricated roof truss manufacturer recently. They weren’t interested in selling just trusses; they wanted to provide their nail-laminated posts as well. Among their selling points were the columns were, “stronger than even the glu-laminated columns”. […]

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” […]

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.  Email all questions to: PoleBarnGuru@HansenPoleBuildings.com DEAR POLE BARN GURU: Will the poles y’all use […]

Steel wrapped poles Hansen Pole Buildings Designer Alan came up with a new client concern recently. His client lost his last barn to a fire, so the client’s idea for his new pole barn is to wrap the poles with light gauge steel, in order to keep them from burning. Of course Alan and I […]

Is it a Glulam? Usually the process works this way – check with the Planning Department to confirm the desired building can be constructed on the property, have pole building plans prepared by a registered design professional (RDP – engineer or architect), apply for and be granted a Building Permit, then build. The photo of […]

The first time I was exposed to finger joints in wood and actually noticed them, was when I was working for Lucas Plywood and Lumber of Salem, Oregon in 1979 (yep, back in the Dark Ages). I will digress momentarily…. My son recently turned 18, but when he was younger he had some interesting questions […]

In prior posts, I’ve mentioned phenol-resorcinol glues. When it comes to putting two or more pieces of wood together (like a glu-laminated column), this combination just can’t be beat for both performance and cost effectiveness. For those who want to be “in the know”, here is the straight scoop! WARNING: Failure to have aced high […]

Glu-laminated columns are a laminated composite product manufactured from high-strength lumber. By using multiple plies of materials, natural defects are randomized creating greater column strength and a higher degree of reliability. Hansen Pole Buildings provides glulam columns manufactured by several different companies, so there are some slight variations. This article will speak more to the […]

Got Wood? While very few consumers visit retail lumberyards or big box home improvement centers nearly as often as I do, if it has been over a year since your last visit, prepare for some serious sticker shock. The sheet of 7/16” osb (oriented strand board) which retailed for a five spot and change last […]

Coriolis Affect on Lumber My oldest step-son, Jake is a very smart lad and teaches high school physics. He does his part to keep students involved, including having created a Facebook page “Mr. Roarks Science Group”. In a recent post he wrote: “One of the science “facts” I always hear is that water spins down […]

I’ve been having back and forth discussions involving board and batten siding. The opposite side of my discussion (who has been considering using yellow poplar) writes: “I too was Worried about board and batten, however our barns are 60-100 years old and still are in good shape.  At least ones that still have a good […]

A prospective client recently posted this question about block foundations: “Our family farm was started around 1850. During this time there were 12-14 barns and 1 house. Most barns deteriorated due to bad roofing. But we’re talking about stuff that lasted 100 years and some longer. We still have 4 barns left and the house […]

This article was a recent Internet rage: Subway customers are whipping out their measuring tapes after Internet postings that claim a short-shifting of the worldwide chain’s famous footlong sub, putting the Milford, Conn.-based company in the hot seat. The controversy began Tuesday in Australia, when a very precise customer, identified as Matt Corby of Perth, […]

Is 2×6 lumber heavy? This is actually fairly important, not just to determine how many boards can be toted around a jobsite by one person, but also in calculating the dead loads which must be carried by structural members such as roof trusses and rafters. Like most things played around with by engineers, and other […]

What I Learned Today – Wood Preservative Hansen Pole Buildings’ Designer Rachel had an interesting story today. She reported, “A builder says he uses Borax around the bottom of the steel.  I thought this was strange and he didn’t say why he was using it.” Being the naturally curious sort, Rachel started researching on the […]

Lumber prices are expected to soar in 2013 before hitting all-time highs the following year, according to a report by the Vancouver consulting group International Wood Markets. Wood Markets president Russ Taylor said the dynamics have been in place since 2008 for a so-called “supercycle” which will push lumber prices into the stratosphere. The only […]

In December I had the opportunity to call on one of our “partners” in the southeastern United States. One thing I began to notice with regularity, as I went from location to location across Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana was “pink” 2×4 studs. Using my limited mental facilities, I could only associate these with some sort […]

What is an LVL? Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) is an industry standard in framing of new wood frame buildings. LVLs are used to replace solid wood beams and joists. They are made in a process similar to plywood, where rotary peeled wood veneers (usually pine or fir) are dried then laminated together with glue and […]

While doing research for a recent post on pressure treated lumber for pole buildings in Hawaii, I stumbled across a YouTube video entitled, “Think Twice before Using Pressure Treated Lumber for a stairway”. The maker of the video purports to have decades of construction experience and is based in Southern California. The video is specifically […]

Over the past few decades, I’ve been involved in several pole building projects on the Hawaiian Islands, and they all had one thing in common – the use of pressure preservative treated lumber throughout, included the prefabricated wood roof trusses. The use of pressure treated wood has been standard building practice in Hawaii and the […]

Lumber grades take into account natural characteristics, including knots, splits, checks, shake, and wane. Lumber design values are assigned to lumber grades to provide a means for using this material in structural applications. These values are published in Design Values for Wood Construction, a supplement to the National Design Specification® (NDS) for Wood Construction. The […]

Here are the top three reasons – Money, Availability, and Recycling/Reusing. Trying to save a few bucks on your pole barn and don’t care about longevity or ease of use, then used utility poles may be the answer. Most people, who are going to invest an average of $50,000 into a new building, prefer to […]

If I had a dime for every time, over the last three plus decades, I have had a potential client even bring up using old telephone (utility) poles for constructing a new pole barn, I would be retired and sitting on the beach in Ecuador now! Pole buildings are designed with the thought of being […]

I first became involved in the post frame (pole) building industry over three decades ago, in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. At the time, many of the region’s pole barn builders were buying the lumber for the pole buildings they were selling to consumers from Withers Lumber in Brooks, Oregon. The “special” thing about this […]

Not near as exciting as 867-5309, but this one Section of the International Building Code (IBC) is one of the most important and least understood sections. The American Wood Preservers Association (AWPA) addresses in, Section UC4 wood, which is pressure preservative treated for “Ground Contact”. The “UC” is short for “Use Class”. UC4A is for […]

This is a product review for Tuff Posts,  a product I have never used. Now how can I feel qualified to do such a review? Thanks to the miracle of the internet, a plethora of information can be gleaned on nearly any product. Tuff Posts are prefabricated columns for use in pole buildings. As a […]

Justine (a Hansen Buildings Project Coordinator) recently needed to order some glu-laminated columns for a pole building kit package. One of our vendors recommended she instead order Parallam® Plus PSL columns instead, insisting they would be as strong as or stronger than glu-lams. Parallam® is the brand name for an engineered wood product developed by […]

Client to Hansen Pole Buildings Designer, Jim; “I talked to a local lumber yard and received a quote from them for a similar 40×60 with attic truss at 40#/sq and they were about 20K lower than your quote.  The 54K that you quoted seemed a little high when I received it.  The other quote did […]

Southern Pine lumber has been popular since Colonial times for a wide variety of applications. Favorable growing conditions, wise forest management, and efficient manufacturing ensure a continuous supply of high-quality Southern Pine products for future generations. Southern Pine consists of four main species — shortleaf, longleaf, loblolly, and slash — and has been the preferred […]

Even the best of pressure preservative treatment chemicals are not going to entirely eliminate the possibility of termite infestations. No, the termites are probably not going to touch the pressure treated materials, but usually building owners are unwilling to invest in all pressure treated wood for their pole buildings. So, what to do with the […]

Pressure-treated lumber has been available for about 60 years. Most original formulas centered on arsenic as the main preservative, to help lumber withstand the extremes of outdoor use. While over time small amounts of chemicals from treatments such as CCA may have leached out of the treated timbers, a 2004 report in Wood and Fibre […]

More than once (especially in California), it has been suggested by lumber yards to use cedar or redwood posts for pole buildings, rather than pressure preservative treated wood of other species. The lumber yard sales people are of the belief the cedar or redwood posts should have adequate natural resistance to decay to last the […]

The smell of fresh sawdust on a crisp fall morning, the slap and ring of hammers on boards, the sturdy feel of new framing – what’s not to love? So it’s no surprise when builders set out to frame a pole building, sometimes they use a little more lumber than really needed. Sometimes a lot […]

In the United States, there are four prevailing species of timber which is used for framing lumber. Douglas Fir-Larch – which includes Douglas Fir and Western Larch (Tamarack). Prevalent along the West Coast, it is also known as Oregon Pine or Red Fir. Hem-Fir – another western lumber species group which includes California Red Fir, […]

We recently had one of our engineers specify the use of glulam pressure treated columns to support one of our custom designed pole buildings. The client was concerned about pressure treated glulams in the ground, so it was time for some heavy duty research. According to the American Institute of Timber Construction (AITC), structural glued […]

I do a lot of research on most everything I blog about.  I want you to have the most solid and recent information, along with my advice as to how to put it to best use.  I found this recently at www.spib.org: “The Family owned and publicly traded companies that choose to use the SPIB […]

Brookfield Timberlands of Vancouver, B.C., Canada owns over 3800 square miles of forest land in Canada (larger than the land area of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined). They are one of North America’s largest log exporters. One of Brookfield’s partners feels a timber supply “shock” is fast approaching which will lead to significantly higher prices […]

As I said yesterday, between 1952 and 2001, more trees grew, more trees died, and more were harvested.  Why? Forest density has a huge role in tree morbidity.  Forest restoration begins with sound ecologic management practices. I have a home in the state of Washington, and in fact, live a good share of the year […]

There have been times when I have seen manufacturers of all steel buildings attempt to portray pole buildings as being less than ecologically friendly. The premise being steel is 100% recyclable, while wood somehow is not. Or, by using wood in construction, we are somehow cutting down all of the trees! Today, forest growth in […]

Green building is one of the most dynamic market forces in construction today. Pole buildings are considered sustainable, but until very recently little documentation existed on the energy efficiency and the reduced impact on the environment created by pole barns. “Green building” is based on producing more sustainable buildings and is the basis for green […]

Let’s start in the forest… When David Friss of Anchorage worked for NOM ‘s Environmental Research Labs in Boulder, he was once asked why lightning sometimes spirals down the trunk of a tree. While the answer was not proven, we observed the path of least resistance might follow the spiral grain of the wood. He […]

Need a piece of lumber? In most of the United States, you get one from your local lumber yard or “big box” store and do not have a choice as to whether the lumber is “green” (moisture content of over 19%) or dry. For the most part, what is available at the retail level is […]

Grab any piece of lumber, with a narrow edge pointed up. Look down the narrow edge and you will normally see an upward or downward arch, or bow to the wood. An upward arch is “crowned up”.  This is a common lumber defect.  When building your new pole building, it is important for the crowns […]