Tag Archives: ceiling height

Basic Stats for Post Frame Home Floor Plans

Basic Stats for Post Frame Home Floor Plans

If there is a single commonality among us humans it is this – we are dimensionally challenged. This situation is even more so crucial when it comes to planning your new post frame home.

Here are a few tips to help you out:

EAVE HEIGHT

Measure from the pressure treated splash plank bottom, to intersection roofing underside at sidewall columns. This is not to be confused with ceiling height (also known as interior clear height).

HOW TO GET AN EIGHT FOOT FINISHED CEILING

For discussion’s sake (and as most post frame homes are concrete slab on grade), set a “zero point” at exterior grade (pressure treated splash plank bottom), slab top will be at +3.5 inches.

To create eight foot finished ceilings requires 8’ 1-1/8” (allows for 5/8” sheetrock on ceilings). This puts us at 8’ 4-5/8”.

Now allow for roof system thickness. With recessed (joist hung between trusses) roof purlins, 6-1/16″ for truss heel height with 2×6 top chord at 4/12 slope (provided you are using closed cell spray foam insulation between purlins).  Minimum eave height would then be 8’ 10-11/16”. If using blown-in insulation truss heel height should be insulation R value divided by 3 plus 2″ to allow plenty of eave to ridge air flow above insulation.

What about two floors?

In order to be able to run utilities (e.g. plumbing and ductwork) through second floor supports, I highly recommend 4” x 2” prefabricated wood floor trusses. Generally truss depth will be about an inch for every clear span foot with a 12 inch minimum.  Adding an arbitrarily chosen 16” deep floor truss and 8’ ceiling on second floor to example in previous paragraph puts eave height at 18’ 4-9/16”.

Stairs challenge even many experienced builders. Finished width must be no less than three feet (if planning allows, four feet is so much nicer), allow for drywall on each side when determining interior framing of stair opening width. In most jurisdictions maximum tread rise is 7-3/4” and minimum run is 10”. In above example, second floor top is 9’ 5-7/8”, so stairs would need at least 14 treads, taking up at least 140” (11’ 8”) horizontally. At stair top and bottom a space, in travel direction, equal to stair width must be provided. Headroom along every point of finished stairs must be no less than 6’8”.

ALLOW FOR WALL THICKNESS

Different providers measure their building footprints differently – some use wall girt outside at ‘call out’ while others use column outside and are three inches greater in width and length, this will need to be accounted for in room dimensions.

Exterior walls with bookshelf girts will be wall column thickness plus 1-1/2” for girts protruding outside of columns. With 3 or 4 ply 2×6 glulams or 6×6 columns allow 7-1/4” plus interior sheetrock thickness. Interior 2×4 walls with ½” sheetrock on each side end up 4-1/2” thick.

APPROPRIATELY SIZE SPACES

Below are popular post frame home rooms and their average square footage, in three categories (listed as small/medium/large):

Entry Foyer (65/89/138)
Kitchen (193/275/423)
Walk-In Kitchen Pantry (17/31/51)
Great Room (487/481/680)
Dining (148/196/281)
Living (256/319/393)
Family (311/355/503)
Recreation (216/384/540)
Entertainment/Media (140/192/280)
Master Bedroom (231/271/411)
Master Bathroom (115/144/210)
Secondary Bedrooms (130/139/178)
Other Bathrooms (93/146/313)
Laundry (67/87/145)
Utility/Mud Room (30/48/80)

Always allow adequate space for hallways (same minimum width rules apply as stairs).

How Tall Are Barn Homes?

Reader CAROLYN in INDIANAPOLIS writes:

“How tall are barn homes? I didn’t know what height to put in…I like tall ceilings …also do u build the homes also?”

Fully engineered post frame homes and barndominiums (barn homes) are beautiful because they only limit your heights under Building Codes to three stories and a 40 foot wall height (add another story and 10 feet for having fire suppression sprinklers – a good idea anyhow). My lovely bride and I live in a post frame home with a 44 foot overall height (and a cupola on top of it). Although this article is written for two story homes it may prove helpful: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2020/05/how-tall-should-my-eave-height-be-for-two-stories/.

Ideally ceiling height measures when framed should be an extra 1-1/8″ taller than your actual finished ceiling (e.g. 10′ 1-1/8″ for 10′ finished). 10′ ceilings have become very popular as well – “my” Vikings bathroom (yes has Vikings’ colors and stuff all over it). 10′ is also cost effective if batt wall insulation is used and drywall can be often purchased in 4′ x 10′ sheets. Our living room ceiling is 16′ as my wife likes her tall Christmas tree, she leaves it up all year long!

This article may also prove helpful to you https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2021/02/a-shortlist-for-smooth-barndominium-sailing/.

www.HansenPoleBuildings.com provides fully engineered, custom designed post frame buildings, with multiple buildings in all 50 states. We ship from over 4000 locations – so chances are we are ‘close’ to you! Your new building will be designed for an average physically capable person who can and will read instructions to successfully construct your own beautiful building (and many of our clients do DIY).

Your building will come with full 24” x 36” structural blueprints detailing the location and attachment of every piece (suitable for obtaining Building Permits), a 500 page fully illustrated step-by-step installation manual, as well as unlimited technical support from people who have actually built buildings.

For those without the time or inclination, we have an extensive independent Builder Network covering the contiguous 48 states. We can assist you in getting erection labor pricing as well as introducing you to potential builders.

We would appreciate the opportunity to participate in your new home. Once you have them, please email your building plans, site address and best contact number to our Design Studio Manager caleb@hansenpolebuildings.com (866)200-9657 Thank you.

Stick Frame and Some Limitations

Stick Frame and Some Limitations


Perhaps stick built construction’s biggest advantage is builders and tradespeople are very comfortable working in and around stick framing. All registered architects and most building inspectors are very familiar with stick framing. The International Residential Code (IRC) provides a prescriptive ‘cook book’ to follow for adequate structural assembly, within certain limitations. These limitations include, but are not limited to, no story height of greater than 11 feet 7 inches (R301.3), no hurricane prone areas with a design wind speed of 130 mph or greater located south of Virginia, or 140 mph elsewhere (R301.2(5)B), and no ground snow loads over 70 psf (R301.2.3).

IRC802.10.2.1 further limits truss spans to a maximum of 36 feet and building lengths to 60 feet (measured perpendicular to truss span). Trussed roof slopes must be at least 3:12 and no greater than 12:12.

Wood is a very forgiving building material and, even when miscut, replacement material is usually only a short drive away. America’s home building industry has built traditional, wood stick framed homes, on site for decades.

Many builders, architects, carpenters and other subcontractors prefer to work on stick built homes as compared to alternative building systems.  Because traditionally framed houses are so popular, dimensional lumber and stick built framers are readily available.

Another advantage of stick built homes is they allow for a great level of design freedom.  You can design your barndominium with various ceiling heights, angles and curves, niches and other details. Stick framing one to achieve those unique details at a fairly affordable cost.

Despite its popularity, stick framing does have some drawbacks. Because stick built homes are assembled outside, over several weeks, framing lumber is subject to outside moisture.If lumber gets too wet, it can shrink and warp as it dries and cause cracks in the attached drywall.  This shrinking and warping can also make it difficult to properly insulate. To decrease  risks of potential moisture problems, ensure exteriors are covered with an appropriate and well-sealed Weather Resistant Barrier and lumber is properly dried before drywall and insulation are installed.

Another drawback of a stick built home is it usually takes several weeks to complete framing.  Total amount of time it will take will obviously depend on size and complexity of house plans and size, experience and availability of any particular framing crew.

A framing crew must precisely cut, assemble and erect barndominium framing components sometimes in adverse weather conditions.  Working around adverse weather conditions is another challenge with stick framing.

Although site-built, stick framed homes clearly dominate America’s housing market, there are several other ways to build a barndominium’s structure. These include post frame, PEMB (pre-engineered metal buildings), weld up steel and concrete.

Gambrel Barndominium Done Differently

What I Would Have Done Differently With Our Gambrel Barndominium

Pole Barn Guru BlogWhen we built our gambrel roof style barndominium 15 years ago we were in a position financially where we could have done most anything we wanted to. Our property was over two acres in size, so available space was not a determining factor. After having lived in it every day for going on four years, I have realized there are some things I would have done differently. For sake of brevity, I will only discuss main clearspan portions of our barndominium (it has 18 foot width sidesheds).

Footprint

Our center portion is 48 feet in clearspan width and 60 feet deep. Whilst this sounds really big, I wish we would have gone 60 feet wide and 72 feet deep. There is just never enough room and a portion of our half-court basketball court has been taken up with a workout area. Start parking a few vehicles inside and even smaller grandkids are looking for space to dribble and shoot the basketball.

Downstairs Height

16 foot high ceilings might seem like a lot. Doing it again I would go to 20. Makes playing basketball easier for those three point shots. At 20 foot, ceiling would not have been perfect for volleyball, but it would have made a serviceable practice area (given a larger footprint): https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2013/09/pole-barn-11/.

Floor Trusses

Yes we could have spanned 60 feet, we just would have had trusses about five feet in thickness. I would have specified a lesser deflection than our current L/360 however (read about floor deflection here: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2015/12/wood-floors-deflection-and-vibration/). I also would have installed a diagonal (top chord to bottom chord) bracing system every 12 feet along building width, tying three trusses together across four feet. This would have further reduced deflection by spreading loads across a wider portion of the floor system.

Knee Walls

Our gambrel trusses are set directly at floor level. In order to have some semblance of sidewalls, we placed a knee wall in four feet from each side, reducing our usable width to 40 feet. While this made our space more functional, ever try to hang pictures on a four foot tall wall? Doing it again, I would opt to raise trusses up either four or eight feet above the floor level. Latter of these would have given wall to wall usable space as well as a more standard wall height.

Upstairs Ceiling Height

We have a 16 foot high ceiling now. While this works, it does make for a short ceiling in my wife Judy’s craft/sewing loft above a portion of our master bedroom. With a 60 foot span, we could easily have had 10 foot ceilings both above and below the loft. Of course Judy would have had to have found a 20 foot tall Christmas tree! (and she would!)

Whatever size barndominium you decide to construct – it will not be large enough. At a minimum I would encourage going no less than 10% greater in space than you think you need. Ready to get serious about planning your new barndominium? Call 1(866)200-9657 to get started now!