Tag Archives: Headroom

A Free Post Frame Building Critique

A Free Post Frame Building Critique

I am going to offer a free critique of this post frame building.

From a design aspect, I wouldn’t consider investing in a residential (or residential accessory) post frame building without overhangs. Not only do they make buildings look far less industrial, they also afford weather protection above doors and push runoff or slide off away from walls. With overhangs building walls stay cleaner and large snow piles sliding off roof are far less likely to dent siding and overhead doors.

Enclosed overhangs, in combination with a vented ridge, provide for adequate air flow from eave to ridge to assist in preventing condensation. 

Note there is a very small space between top of overhead door openings and roofline. This means these particular overhead doors will need to have low headroom tracks in order to open. In many cases this precludes an ability to have a remote garage door opener. Low headroom also tends to not open as smoothly. Certainly it would be impossible to have a ceiling installed at a future date (provided trusses were loaded to be adequate to support extra ceiling load).

For virtually no extra cost, overhead door openings could have been dog-eared – a 45 placed in opening upper corners. This makes building again look more like it fits in one’s backyard, rather than an industrial park.

Look at wall bottoms. There is maybe two inches of pressure preservative treated splash plank showing. Due to this, when entry door landings or aprons in front of overhead doors are poured, to avoid having concrete poured against steel siding, there will be a significant step. There is also no base trim (aka rat guard) at the base of walls to stop critters from venturing in through steel siding high ribs.

It is very easy to see nearly every roof and wall steel panel overlap. When properly applied, these laps should not show. This is a craftmanship (or lack thereof) issue.

Missing from sidewall tops is any sort of trim. Even though steel siding and roofing is manufactured (in most cases) on machines with computer controlled cutoffs, there is some slight variance. This variance is going to show either at the base of walls, or at the top. By having trim at wall tops, any slight differences can be hidden.

Structurally – wall girts flatwise on column outsides on spans such as these fail due to not meeting Building Code deflection limitations. https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2012/03/girts/

All of these items mentioned above would not be an issue with a new Hansen Pole Building. We seriously lay awake at night thinking of ideas to prevent clients from making crucial mistakes – we want to avoid you owning a building you will hate forever! 

Looking for a building done right? Call 1(866)200-9657 to speak with a Building Designer today – call is free and there is no obligation or charge!

Headroom Headaches, Post Hole Problems, and Insulation Options

Tackling Headroom Headaches, Post Hole Problems, and Insulation Options

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: I am curious about the room I needed for my overhead door. I had my building designed for a 12’x12′ overhead door in the middle of the end wall. My wall height is 14′ but with a truss depth of 18″ the bottom of the truss is only 12’6″. With my door installed the curve of the tracks extends above the 12’6″ and also the spacing of the trusses is 12′ from the outside of the building to the face of the next truss in leaving me with only 11’6″ interior space. so now my problem is that the tracks have to go over the top of the bottom chord of the truss and with less than 12′ of space my door runs into the truss if I open the door all the way. Do you happen to have any ideas for a way to open my door all the way? Thank you. COREY in SPIRIT LAKE

DEAR COREY: This is why I always encourage clients to order their doors along with their building kit package. The kit suppliers will insure the door provided will fit in the building!

Your circumstance should have been easily solved by whomever supplied your overhead door and is really fairly simple. By using high lift track the door can go up the inside of the endwall several feet, then the track will curve leaving the door, when opened, parked between the endwall and the first pair of trusses. This also puts the overhead tracks up below the bottom of the trusses and out of the zone where things might run into them.

 

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: How difficult is it to dig post holes near very very large pecan trees? STEVE in DALLAS

DEAR STEVE: You should not build within 15 feet of a pecan tree, due to the tremendous amount of moisture they take from the ground. You also want to consider the possibility of branches falling from the tree and hitting your new building. If you remove the tree, the ground in the area of the tree’s root system will probably swell, due to the ground water no longer being removed by the tree. This swelling can cause heaves to both embedded building columns as well as concrete slab on grade floors.

 

 

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: Just built a pole barn, 30×36 with 12′ ceiling. I put up 1×12 Hemlock board and batton siding. What kind of insulation do you recommend? It will have on demand heat, but not full time heat. I’m in NEW JERSEY so we have cold winters and humid summers. RAY in CALIFON

DEAR RAY: If your new pole barn (post frame building) was designed with raised heel trusses and for the trusses to carry a ceiling load, I’d be looking at blowing in R-60 fiberglass or cellulose above the finished ceiling. This requires adequate ventilation – either 260 square inches on net free area at the eaves and ridge, or the same in each gable end in the top ½ of the attic space. This requires an air baffle to allow air to flow in from the eaves above the insulation.

Don’t have raised heel trusses? Then use high R value rigid insulation board in areas where blown insulation would be compressed.

Trusses not designed to support a ceiling? If this is the case, then closed cell spray foam the underside of the roofing. It will take between eight and nine inches of thickness to achieve R-60.

If you have housewrap under the siding, you did right. In this case I would install another set of 2×4 girts on the inside of my walls, then use BIBs wall insulation. Place a clear 6ml visqueen vapor barrier on the inside and then gypsum wallboard.

No housewrap? Then closed cell spray foam is the route to go. Four inches will get you to R-28.