Central Missouri 48 x 64 Post Frame

jwith68 · Apr 26, 2015

I'll disappoint some of you right up front, though. Its going to be a "garage" (for farm equipment mainly) so I'm putting it in "Garage Gallery". However, its not going to be a shop. Thought some might like to see how its constructed, and it could be turned into a shop with fairly minimal effort.

Some quick specs:
* 48' x 64' x 14' post frame (pole building)
* Poles 8' OC for walls, Trusses 4' OC
* 18" soffits on all sides
* 1 - 22' double slider centered on a 64' side wall
* 1 - 3-0 walk door
* 6' x 10' porch roof over walk door
* 8' x 48' 50lb/sqft mezzanine on one end of building with stairs
* Scissor trusses from edge of door to end with mezzanine, for extra vertical clearance
* 2x6 interior grade board and 2x4 bookshelf girts (in addition to exterior girts) to 8'-6" above floor
* Interior covered with 7/16" OSB from top of grade board, up 8'
* Double bubble foil insulation over whole building
* Gray 5-rib metal walls, white 5-rib metal roof, white trim

We've had a building pad built up since last October, but it wasn't until about April 8 that it got dry enough to do a final leveling and start drilling holes.

Here's the building site, leveled and ready to start, with first materials delivered.

And on April 15, poles are planted.

Evening of April 21, wall girts and grade boards on, trusses delivered.

April 22, trusses set and braced, ~2/3 of the roof purlins on.

Transition from Scissor trusses to regular trusses.

That's about where it is today, crew will be back tomorrow to finish framing. Should have a decent amount of metal on by the end of the week.

jwith68 · Apr 28, 2015

April 27, pretty much all exterior framing complete.

I think its going to look nice with the 18" soffits/overhangs, wish I'd have done that 12+ years ago when we were building the garage and shop.

Crew will be back for a half day or so today, to put up the interior girts. Metal is ordered, should start going on Thursday!

Hiball · Apr 28, 2015

Looks Good.. :thumbup:

jwith68 · Apr 29, 2015

April 29, interior bookshelf girts in place (except for the very bottom one, will fill in between grade boards with rock first), additional blocking, interior ledger boards lag bolted to poles, hurricane ties on trusses. Metal to start going on Thursday.

jwith68 · May 1, 2015

April 30, metal started. East wall covered.

Should have more progress today, possibly most of the metal on by Tuesday.

jwith68 · May 2, 2015

May 1, we have a roof!

Also part of a back wall.

Now if I get out there and get to work, we'll have electrical rough-in (minus breaker box) this weekend.

gravelydude · May 2, 2015

Looking very good! I see that you have insulation. Is this mostly to prevent moisture in building, or do you plan on some heating? Is your metal 26 or 29 gauge? Looks really good for equipment storage!

Jack

logixjock · May 2, 2015

What's your roof pitch, and the inside pitch of your scissor trusses? Building is looking good so far. Who are you using to put it up?

jwith68 · May 2, 2015

gravelydude said:
Looking very good! I see that you have insulation. Is this mostly to prevent moisture in building, or do you plan on some heating? Is your metal 26 or 29 gauge? Looks really good for equipment storage!

Jack

Thank you! I'm very happy with it so far. The insulation is mainly to eliminate condensation, but I'm hoping it will keep the building a bit cooler on the hottest summer days, and take the edge off the coldest nights. No plans for heat at this time. 29 gauge metal from a local supplier, Lane Building Products in Owensville, MO.

logixjock said:
What's your roof pitch, and the inside pitch of your scissor trusses? Building is looking good so far. Who are you using to put it up?

The roof pitch is 4:12, not 100% sure of the inside pitch, but 2.5:12 is close. It's being put up by a local contractor whom I've known for years. Building is a side business for him. He and a couple of guys that work for him all work together at a local manufacturing facility, on a schedule that allows them quite a bit of time to do this type of thing. They're quick, do really nice work, and run a clean site.

I should mention too, that I got ~2/3 of my electrical rough-in done today. Its not real complicated, mainly just some lights and outlets. Got all the boxes nailed in, and wire to all the outlets. Have overhead wire to run tomorrow - not my favorite thing to do, lots of trips up and down the ladder.

jwith68 · May 8, 2015

My 1000th post! I must not have a lot to say, considering that I've been registered here going on 10 years now.

More progress this week. I was traveling Tuesday - Thursday, but I got to see most of the metal on 3 sides before I left. Pictures taken early this morning with rain clouds in the west. Got run back in the house by a downpour. This was progress as of May 6.

That much was completed Tuesday. On Wednesday, they had re-work to do because of a lumber company goof up. Lumber company was supposed to have the main door header engineered, because it has to carry 22' of the roof on a side wall. They didn't, and just put down two 14" LVL's to be delivered. I know the guy who did this, and neither myself or the builder is too happy with him.

After they were up and the roof was on, there was a noticeable sway to them. Not terrible, but noticeable (without snow load, obviously). So, my builder went back and questioned them about it. To give him full credit, he noticed it before I did and took the initiative. They had it engineered properly this time. Came out a little more than two 14" LVL's. Called for a 5.5" x 18" Para-lam, and a 2.25" x 18" LVL. Here's the rebuilt header. Looks a lot more robust now (sorry about the second photo, sky was too bright even with flash.)

There won't be any more progress on the metal or interior for another week or so. The builder & his family took a vacation trip & will be back on 5/14. Hope to get more done with the rock, both out in front and start building in for the floor. Maybe some more electric work, too - I have some digging to do on that I'm not looking forward to. May not have much progress on either, considering its pretty much pouring outside, and has been since 7:45. Since I took a vacation day myself, looks like it will be spent in the shop instead of working on the machine shed.

jwith68 · May 19, 2015

No photo's for today's update, but hopefully some in a day or two. The four large tandem loads of rock in the last few photo's above are now all but gone, used to make a floor base and build up for a porch pad for the walk door. Electrical rough-in is ~85% complete.

Burned the midnight oil last night - finished running the rock in for the floor base, and then the real fun started. I hand dug a trench across the 22' door opening, about 12" wide and 16" deep in hard packed clay, for a "threshold" beam or wall to be poured with the porch and indoor pads today or tomorrow. Actually, I was lucky that the moisture was just right, or I'd have been renting a mini-excavator. Was just damp enough you could cut it, but not enough to stick to the shovel. Much wetter, and it would have stuck too bad to work with, and if it was dry it would have been impossible to cut. I shoveled the "slabs" of clay directly into my skid steer bucket, and nearly filled it four times. Didn't get to started until about 8PM (after finishing the rock) and finished the dig about 10:30. Fun fun!

Terrovan · May 19, 2015

A blank canvas is always a great way to start. Looking forward to seeing more.

jwith68 · May 19, 2015

May 19, and more visible progress. Concrete poured, and posts set for the mezzanine. This photo shows the posts, and the 8' x 21' pad just inside the walk door. Sonotubes are for bollards that will protect a farm diesel tank that will set against the wall just to the right of the main door. Thought I had 16" diameter sonotubes, but they were 20" instead. Oh well, more support for the bollards with a bigger hole filled with concrete, I suppose.

Porch pad, too.

Also a "threshold" for the main door. This will maintain a level for the compacted limestone floor, and the sliding doors will be adjusted down to a small step formed in the outside edge of it with a 2x4 for support and to somewhat seal them up at the bottom. This was my fun dig last night. Should be good to drive across with heavy stuff, close to 24" deep in the middle.

Track and sliding door frames hung. Doors frames are welded up out of 1.5" x 2" x 14ga steel tube, with 1.5" x 3" x 14ga bottom rails. Makes for really nice sliders - reasonably light weight, yet very strong and very little flex.

Had a little time this evening to begin putting up light fixtures. Standard 4" round boxes, porcelain keyless bases, 12" barn-style screw in reflector, large 85W (5800 lumen) 5000K CFL. 12 of these to light the main building, with 3 or 4 regular 23W CFL's under the mezzanine. Hope its enough light for a machine shed. It's an economical setup for something like a machine shed, assuming it works like it's supposed to.

C_F · May 20, 2015

I love the simplicity of this build, kinda makes me want to do one in MY back yard!

Thanks for sharing the pics for us all here.

BTW, I'm not sure if it's an optical illusion on my end, but in this shot, the roof still appears to bow downward a little over the door opening. Maybe it's just me?

jwith68 · May 20, 2015

C_F said:
I love the simplicity of this build, kinda makes me want to do one in MY back yard! Thanks for sharing the pics for us all here.

BTW, I'm not sure if it's an optical illusion on my end, but in this shot, the roof still appears to bow downward a little over the door opening. Maybe it's just me?

Thank you!

And yes, it does appear that way in this photo, but it does not actually do so. If you look closely, the roof peak and door tracks also appear to bow down. Every photo in this thread was taken with my phone camera (Galaxy S5 Active) Though it has great resolution, I think I am finding the drawbacks of a tiny, yet wide-angle lens in photos like this one.

jwith68 · May 21, 2015

May 20, and we have a mezzanine. Good day for them to build this, because if you were to judge by the weather instead of the calendar, you'd likely think March 20. 50°F give or take, breezy, and steady rain most of the day.

Another view.

Stairs - nice that we can land them on the concrete pad.

And a quick view from up top.

vekster · May 21, 2015

Building looks amazing!

Quick question:

Why not scissor trusses for entire length of building?
Is it just a cost savings or are there other reasons for changing to regular trusses for the one end?
thanks!

jwith68 · May 21, 2015

vekster said:
Building looks amazing!

Quick question:

Why not scissor trusses for entire length of building?
Is it just a cost savings or are there other reasons for changing to regular trusses for the one end?
thanks!

Thank you!

My design thought process was along the lines of "I'll only need the extra clearance for the mezzanine." With 14' sidewall height, that is true - so I didn't spec them for the whole building. If I was doing it over, I might just use the scissor trusses full length. I'm pretty sure it would not be much of a cost adder.

jwith68 · May 28, 2015

May 28 update: We now have a man door and a porch roof. Can't tell it very well in this photo, but I also cleaned up the door frames, primed the whole frame, and painted the parts you will see from inside. Nothing fancy, just Rustoleum rattle cans.

Also a partial front wall of metal and the limestone fines for the floor. Can barely see it, but there's also a stack of 7/16" OSB inside that will go on the interior walls in a couple of days.

I also tackled a job last night that I had not been looking forward to. Wasn't really so bad though. You may have noticed the short post with the electrical box on it in a couple other photos. The one next to the corner of the building:

That was originally supposed to be inside the corner of the building, but due to a miscommunication between me and my fence builder, the building had to shift east about 3'. Still need electric in the building, though. So last night I did some digging. Started out by scooping away the edge of the built up pad up to the post with the skid steer, and then doing some hand digging. It wasn't as bad of digging as I thought, because it was very wet. Once I got down about 3', my hole had standing water, and I was deep enough anyway, so I disassembled the post, box, and conduit. I then carefully cut the conduit down low as I could, and used a couple of 45's on each one to bring them up inside the wall. No in progress pictures, sorry. From the outside now:

And from the inside:

jwith68 · May 29, 2015

Progress for today is mainly getting the horizontal 2x6 in place between the interior and exterior grade boards and OSB up on 3 walls, more or less. I knew the OSB would really clean up the look of the interior, and I was right. Also provides protection to the insulation blanket and even the metal from inside-out damage. East wall:

South wall:

West end with mezzanine:

Getting really close to usable now!

cj7jeep81 · May 29, 2015

Very interested in how your lighting comes out, as I have a similar size I'll be lighting soon. Also, what did you put down at the base of your osb? I'm thinking of using a 6" strip of treated plywood (just to keep the osb off the concrete), but curious what you used.

Looks great though!

jwith68 · May 29, 2015

cj7jeep81 said:
Very interested in how your lighting comes out, as I have a similar size I'll be lighting soon. Also, what did you put down at the base of your osb? I'm thinking of using a 6" strip of treated plywood (just to keep the osb off the concrete), but curious what you used.

Looks great though!

I'm kind of holding my breath on the lighting as well. However, it is just an equipment storage building, so its not as critical as if it were a workspace. As such, I'm attempting to keep it low budget. I suspect the ~25 lumens/sqft will be adequate for my use, but an actual workspace would need quite a bit more, maybe 3x more.

This building has interior and exterior treated 2x6 grade boards, with another treated 2x6 set flat in between them. The OSB sets down on top of the interior grade board. The floor level is set at 3" below the top of the grade board, so there is 3" of treated lumber between the bottom of the OSB and the floor, be it the small concrete slab, or the compacted limestone fines we will put in for the remainder of the floor.

jwith68 · Jun 3, 2015

June 3, and a couple more days of work have it getting near completion. Starting to look finished with 99% of the metal on, and some of the trim.

Door track cover and end trim still to be installed, but the front now has soffit and fascia up. Porch roof is now covered too, just in need of some trim.

I believe the trim will all be finished in about another day's work. I'm getting closer on the electric work, got the main panel in last night. Also hoping to be able to post floor photos by the weekend.

jwith68 · Jun 3, 2015

June 3, today was a major milestone. My builder is done with his part of it. The exterior envelope is complete, as is his portion of the interior.

View from toward the house and shop:

A little closer in:

East end & south side:

West end & entry door detail:

Now the rest is up to me & my excavation guy. I'll call the gutter guy tomorrow, want to get those on asap. Still need to finish the main electrical panel install & connect the mains and the circuits. Also have some light switches to install, as well as a connection for a farm diesel pump. Also need to put up four double exterior flood lights, two over the main door and two that will light the cattle pens on the west end. Later I'll build railings for the stairs and mezzanine. That may be a fall project.

My excavation guy can't get the limestone fines floor run in until next week, but I may try to do some of it myself this weekend. I don't mind doing it myself, but I have never used his laser transit, and his Cat 287B MTL will not churn up the base rock anywhere near as bad as my rubber tire skid steer will.

The dirt pile needs to move so I can build a fence through there, but it may have to wait for a bit. It is so wet right now, even the MTL will mud things up badly. Taking the "east end & south side" photo above, I was standing in a few inches of water that's just standing in that pasture. We've had a lot of rain lately, around 3" this past weekend, and another few tenths today. The ground out there is so flat that it doesn't run off, and is so saturated it can't soak in right now. What makes it worse though, is that today was the 5th straight day with very little or no sun at all, just low overcast, or rain. Also, the highs from Sunday through Tuesday did not top 60°F. That may be normal for June in Maine, but not in Missouri. If we could get a little sun and wind, the top would dry out nicely. Should be easy drilling post holes, though.

jwith68 · Jun 9, 2015

June 9: No floor yet, but we have gutters. 6" gutters, 3"x4" downspouts.

Had him put a gutter on the barn, too. That and a bunch of creek rock should help to fix the mud hole we've had there for a while.

ADSR · Jun 10, 2015

looks fantastic!

jwith68 · Jun 15, 2015

June 15, and we are getting close to finished - we have a floor! Thirty-some-odd cubic yards of limestone "fines" or "3/8-minus" or "5/16-minus" depending on where you are. Run in and leveled with my excavation guy's Cat 287B yesterday afternoon. This shows it as it stands now, with a little bit of hand work here and there to take care of high/low spots, and three passes with a plate compactor.

Not perfect, but not bad. Besides, we're parking equipment on it, not shooting pool on it. Here's a couple shots from up on the mezzanine. Had all the doors closed in these shots to give a sense of how much light comes through the daylight panels on the doors. This is at about 7PM, and the doors face more or less north.

While we're "up top", took a couple photos of a minor mod I had the builder make before he finished up. We wound up with 7" wide holes (slots) between poles at the wall edge of the mezzanine, as shown here from May 20:

So I had him fill in with a 2x6, plus a 2x4 on edge. Nothing can fall down (behind the OSB wall sheathing) and I gain a little usable floor space up there to boot.

We had just enough limestone fines left (maybe half a tandem load) to finish out the ramp into the main doors.

That leaves the rest of it mostly up to me. I need to finish out the electric work, pipe a downspout or two away from the building, and move a dirt pile (if it ever gets dry enough.) We'd have moved the dirt pile yesterday, but we are just continually getting rain, with more coming, 4"+ forecast for our area over the next week. I'll run the compactor over the floor another time or two as well. It really starts to tighten up with the third pass and beyond.

jwith68 · Nov 7, 2015

Been a long time since I updated this, but I have a worthwhile one this time: Electricity! Just got it connected Friday evening - pretty nice to have lights with the evenings being so short. From the front, with all the interior and front floods (4 of them) on.

Four more floods on the west end too, to light up the barn lot.

Those big CFL's do a nice job lighting up the inside. Plenty bright enough for machine storage. Wouldn't take much more at all to make it bright enough for a shop. Not quite as empty as in the previous photos, either.

C_F · Nov 8, 2015

That looks great! It will be a nice peace of mind to have all your equipment inside, away from the elements.

jwith68 · Feb 29, 2016

Another of my increasingly infrequent updates: safety (at) last! The mezzanine is nice, but would not be nice to take the shortcut down. Thought some railings would be the prudent thing to do. We had several cutoffs of 1.5"x2"x14ga rectangular tube from fabricating the sliding door frames. They were a bit too short, so we extended them using other drops, and came out just about perfectly using up all the door frame cutoffs. I wanted the railings quickly removable on the outer edge so large items can be lifted up with a loader. I decided it would work okay to permanently mount the posts and make the rails themselves removable. So the posts are lagged into the perimeter microlam beam with a pair of 3/8"x2" lag bolts. The upper parts of the posts have "fixed" and "pinned in" sockets so that the middle three 10' sections of railing come out easily. The posts used for three of the four outers:

One "fixed" socket only post, on the south end:

The railings for around the stairs will be permanently attached, and don't need sockets, so with all the posts in place:

The railings themselves are just 1-1/4" EMT. I used 2-hole straps for all the permanent attachments, with self-threading 1/4"-20 bolts on the stair rail posts:

To retain the rails in the "pin in" sockets, I used 1/4" x 2-1/2" lock pins made for a tractor PTO. Perfect fit, and cheap, at ~$1/each.

So now it looks like this from up top:

And this from on the floor:

themiller · Feb 29, 2016

Awesome update! I *quite* like your railings. Tucking that away in the brain for another day. Really like the use of the lock pins.

jwith68 · Mar 1, 2016

Thanks! I'm not sure these railings would meet code, but I live in a rural county without codes. I am certain they will keep someone (like me) from accidentally taking the quick way down. They are actually pretty sturdy.

I considered a few different ways to do these, and this just seemed to make the most sense, given the materials I had on hand. I have used these lock pins in a couple other applications. They work well, and replacements can be had for $1.99/2-pack at any local farm supply. I just need to get my stair rail up now, with the last 2 pieces of EMT.

jwith68 · Mar 2, 2016

Finished the stair railing this evening. Same recipe as the other railings, more or less. Lower and middle posts out of 1.5"x2"x14ga cutoffs, used the top post that supports the railings around the stair opening.

Welded up a simple cradle for the 1-1/4" EMT with some strips cut from 1-1/2" Schedule 40 and an angle piece cut from 2"x3"x11ga cutoffs. Those are welded on top the lower and middle posts. Couple of 1/4"-20 self-threaders through each cradle into the bottom of the EMT.

Also got some nice tube caps to finish off the tops of the posts from McMaster-Carr. Not necessary, but a nice little detail.

Capped the outer posts, too.

Getting this whole thing wrapped up. Need to get my farm diesel tank in place next.

IPACA9 · Mar 5, 2016

I'm curious on what you used for your mezzanine flooring. What thickness OSB is that and how sturdy does it feel? I'm building a large 30x40 u-shaped mezzanine in mine right now and trying to decide in what I want to do for the floor. 3/4 plywood would be nice but adds up quick. I'm thinking I might cover it with some carpet runners or something else anyways. I'm in Missouri as well. Independence, Mo

jwith68 · Mar 6, 2016

IPACA9 said:
I'm curious on what you used for your mezzanine flooring. What thickness OSB is that and how sturdy does it feel? I'm building a large 30x40 u-shaped mezzanine in mine right now and trying to decide in what I want to do for the floor. 3/4 plywood would be nice but adds up quick. I'm thinking I might cover it with some carpet runners or something else anyways. I'm in Missouri as well. Independence, Mo

We used 3/4" Advantech T&G subfloor on the mezzanine. Joists are 2x10, 24"OC. It feels quite sturdy, can't really get any flex out of it. It is designed for 50psf live load.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

IPACA9 · Mar 6, 2016

I went ahead and bought 3/4 t&g plywood today. Just getting ready to hang the joists. I spent about a $80 more for the 8 sheets I picked up but figured why not. My joists are 2X6, 16" OC. Deck is 7½ft on each side and across the back it's only 6ft deep

I'm working around my mess.

mobileaudio219 · Mar 6, 2016

Looks good. I'm in east central MO to. Down in the Sullivan area.

IPACA9 · Mar 6, 2016

<deleted> Sorry. Thought I was replying to one of my threads

jwith68 · Jun 6, 2016

Another infrequent update: farm diesel tank is in place. I had picked out a spot for it right next to the large sliding door, on the concrete slab. I had a 275 gallon oval tank saved back for this occasion. I didn't think to take any pictures in progress, so here is the finished product.

The tank got a good cleanup and a new coat of paint. I got a great deal on one bollard post and a section of guard rail from a surplus auction at work, just had to copy the post. This will hopefully protect the tank from mishaps. Those bollards are anchored down with eight 3/4" wedge anchors.

I got a good deal on a used Fill-Rite transfer pump, so I set it up with a Goldenrod filter, and got an extra 12' length of hose to add onto the one that came with the pump, a swivel, and a Fill-Rite auto-shutoff nozzle. I also added a level gauge to the tank, so I can actually tell how much is in it.

Only probem with the pump is that it is 12VDC rather than 120VAC. I decided to just try using an inexpensive 12VDC switching power supply. I bought a 30A PS, even though the pump is rated 20A max. I had an extra 8"x8"x4" plastic box that already had some holes cut in the bottom, so I decided to use it. The PS hangs out the bottom a bit, so the fan can get cooler air (if it ever comes on). I put a couple holes in the side of the box away from the door for the fan to push air out. Found a good used E-stop switch to use as a power switch for the PS. All works good so far. Need to call tomorrow to get my first 250 gallon fill of diesel.

Next: I need to come up with a better solution for hanging 24' of fuel hose. Also, maybe a change or two in the residents of the machine shed.

jwith68 · Jun 8, 2016

One other detail I forgot to grab photos of the other day, bollard posts for the large sliding doors, too.

I'm careful, but things can happen when you're backing equipment in. Should save the door frames and trim metal if anything gets out there. These are 4" Schedule 40 pipe, sunk 42" deep in a 12" diameter hole. There's 48" above ground. The hole is filled with concrete, but I didn't fill the pipes. I was initially going to, but decided that since they are not set into a big, thick concrete slab, they would move in the ground before they bent anyway.

Central Missouri 48 x 64 Post Frame

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