Tag Archives: steel warranty

Barndominium Warrantees

Barndominium Warrantees

Regular readers of my articles are aware I have joined and regularly read and contribute to every Facebook and Linkedin group about barndominiums and post frame buildings I possibly can find. My goal always is for people to get their best possible value for their investment, even should they somehow decide Hansen Pole Buildings is for some reason not an ideal fit.

In all of my group participation I have racked my brain trying to recall any conversations in regards to warranty.  

Truthfully I had not given it much thought until reader ALLIE in BRAINERD wrote:

“Hello, 

My husband and I are looking to build a building and deciding what vendors we would like to move forward with. Can you please provide details on all of your warranty information for the below list and any additional warranties you may have?

Columns:

Steel:

Paint:    

Workmanship/Leaks:

Timber:

Thank you, Allie”

Thank you very much for asking, Allie! Weirdly, very few people seem to pay attention to warranties when it comes to buildings. As consumers we seem to be obsessed with warranty coverage on seemingly everything we purchase – retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart try to sell extended warrantees when you check out even!

To my knowledge Hansen Pole Buildings offers what may be our industry’s only written structural warranty on a complete post frame building kit: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2015/11/pole-building-warranty/

Various levels of warranty are available for steel roofing and siding – up to and including lifetime. If you are concerned about paint chalking and fading like I am, I would highly recommend you specify Kynar paint (provided it is available in your region).  https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2014/05/kynar/

Any workmanship/leak warranty would be covered by your builder of choice. When I was a post frame building contractor two decades ago, we offered a five year warranty against roof leaks. In reality, if proper screws and screw pattern are specified and properly installed, screws either leak right away, or are good forever. 

We are not contractors ourselves and our buildings are designed so an average person who can and will read instructions can successfully construct their own beautiful building. If you are not so inclined, we can provide names of one or more builders to erect your building anywhere in the continental United States.

Other warranty information is available here: https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/pole-building-faqs/product-warranties/.

While not a ‘warranty’ per se, maybe your best warranty investment will be in a fully engineered building. This is your assurance your new building and all of its components and connections have been reviewed and designed by a highly trained professional.

A Serious Case of Roof Steel Leaks

This is one of those “Dear Pole Barn Guru” letters which I feel bad for the client in having to answer. The client has paid good money to have his new post frame building constructed, only to have installer challenges render the end result as far less than ideal.

For your reading pleasure:

DEAR POLE BARN GURU: The Hansen pole barn kit I bought has 26 gauge steel roofing put on twice by a licensed contractor that still leaks profusely. A licensed roofer suggested 50 year shingles. Will the trusses bear the weight of a wooden deck and shingles? What’s the expected life span/warranty on your 26 gauge steel roofing from ABC in SLC? TOM in SHERIDAN

DEAR TOM: I’ve had seen the photos of your roof from the inside, as near as I can tell, the roof purlins were not originally set in a straight line from one end of the building, to the other. It then appears the roof steel was predrilled, causing a plethora of screws to miss the purlins as installation progressed from the end towards the middle. The only real solutions are to add lots of framing under all of the holes (so every screw goes straight into the underlying framing) or to remove the roofing, align the purlins and then install new steel over them. If the roof plane is square, the purlins are placed in straight rows and the roof steel is predrilled to properly match the purlin spacing, there is no reason it should leak – other than plain installer error. Placing screws through holes at an angle, or using caulking is not an adequate repair.

As with most post frame (pole) buildings, the roof has been designed to support the weight of the trusses, roof purlins, minimal roof insulation (to prevent condensation) and the roof steel. In order to support OSB or plywood and shingles, at a minimum the roof would need to have been designed for a 7 psf (pounds per square foot) dead load, rather than 3.3 psf. It might be possible to get an engineered repair to the trusses to increase the load carrying capacity, but it is unlikely it would be an easy, or inexpensive, fix.

The steel warranty information is available on our website at:

https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/pole-building-faqs/product-warranties/

In your climate, properly installed, your steel roof should last longer than either you or I.

On a side note – a “50 year” shingle typically has a very rapid decline in what percentage of replacement material (no labor) is covered. Here is the true story of shingle warranties:

https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/2015/03/shingle-warranties/