My official pole barn build thread...

moneyisflying · Feb 23, 2014

It may be early for me to do this, but I figured I would start an official build thread of my pole barn. I figured it wouldn't hurt anything to start it early, and it may be benefitial in the event I can get any new ideas or pointers from more experienced guys or girls from this awesome forum.

So, I have known I wanted a pole barn for a few years now. I've just got too much stuff for my three car garage, and wanted some extra space for some projects. The main pupose behind a pole barn for me is just some place to put a couple cars, ATV's, lawn mower ect., and have more room for my tools and make a small workshop (nothing fancy, just a decent tool bench and an area to work).

Originally when I didn't know how much space I would need or how much things cost, I wanted to do a 40x60. Later as I realized that would be well out of my price range and honestly way more room than I need now or ever need, the size dropped to a 30x50. I sold my personal experimental plane last fall which have me the money for the project. I had $15,000 to spend, with $2,000 set aside on top of that for possible overages. I was told to go with the National Barn Company for the build. I'm really glad I did because the cheapest I found materials to build the pole barn was about $10,300 from Menards, and that still left me figuring out how to construct it myself. National Barn quoted me $10,500 to have a 30x48 pole barn erected in full.

Unfortunately after doing more research, it would seem between concrete, stone, and insulation for the pole barn (all of which are must have for me) that I am not confident I can still get it built in my price range. I recently visited my cousins pole barn which is also 30x48 and noticed it still has a bit more room than I necissarily would need. I know it's always best to plan for more room than less because you never know what you may want or need in the future, but it really is coming down to either doing it or not, so I am considering dropping the size again to a 30x40. This would be the smallest I would go. It's still big enough to do everything I want, and still have a little space to grow. I need to call some more people on concrete and the National Barn company to see the differences this will make on price, but I am estimating this will allow me to get the job done this year and still be on budget.

I also am aware I could just put it off another year or so to save up the rest, or wait to do the concrete until later, but there are other things going on where I will really need this pole barn completed in full this year, and I need it finished in full to be able use it the way I will need to.

So far, I have found a few ways to save. I have found good deals on gravel, and my cousin will excavate for me for free as long as I rent the bulldozer for him. I have found the best deal I think is possible for insulation on the building. I am searching more for different prices on concrete currently as I have only had one quote and it was very pricey I believe (I'll find out after I get more quotes).

I am open to any suggestions or input any might have during the course of the build. I am hoping to start breaking ground in the spring (whenever that deuces to happen this year).

MagKarl · Feb 23, 2014

I'm in the same boat. The big shop just isn't in the cards. My current plan is for half to be enclosed with slab floor, the other half roof only carport with gravel floor. That will get everything under cover, but save a lot on metal and concrete.

NUTTSGT · Feb 23, 2014

If you have the funds available to get the structure built with the concrete done, I'd get that portion completed. Once that is done, I'd worry about the inside.

What are your skills ? Can you finish the inside ? Hopefully, you can as it will save you tons of cash, allowing you to do more for your money.

moneyisflying · Feb 23, 2014

NUTTSGT said:
If you have the funds available to get the structure built with the concrete done, I'd get that portion completed. Once that is done, I'd worry about the inside.

What are your skills ? Can you finish the inside ? Hopefully, you can as it will save you tons of cash, allowing you to do more for your money.

For what I want to do with the inside, I will be able to finish it myself. I'm going to do electric and basic plumbing though (which I will need ran prior to the concrete). Really the only big expense I could save on the inside is the insulation, but I am going to spray foam the ceiling at least, and depending on what I decide for the walls, I may spray foam them as well. From the research I have done, it would seem the spray foam needs to be done almost immediately after the barn is put up. If it's not, it will not adhere correctly.

So basically, unless I don't go with foam insulation for the walls, there's not a whole lot I can save on in the inside.

moneyisflying · Nov 21, 2017

So I have done a pretty poor job of keeping this updated!

So, I'll recap where its at now. Barn is up. I got some cheap insulation sheets off of craigslist I have been slowly putting up inside the barn. They are pink, and ugly, and with what little spare time I have had it has taken me forever, but I have got all the insulation up and it does a good job of insulating the barn. I sealed them in place with canned spray foam.

I also made a furnace from a 55 gallon drum kit. And with the help of others I was able to get a good chimney system setup also and it does a great job of heating things up when its cold outside.

I just got done priming the ceiling yesterday (I'll try and get pics up). Hopefully I will be able to paint the ceiling in the next few days.

Charlie51 · Nov 21, 2017

...so what size barn did you settle on? Did you use National Barn? Was the work done according to what you envisioned? Any pictures?

moneyisflying · Nov 22, 2017

Charlie51 said:
...so what size barn did you settle on? Did you use National Barn? Was the work done according to what you envisioned? Any pictures?

Ended up going with a 30x50. I DID use national barn company. What a great company by the way. They were quick, friendly and their quality was top notch! If anyone is interested in them building a barn for them PM me and I have a way for you to save money. I had the 30x50 built, with a man door, and a heavily insulated garage style 13' wide door for $9500!

I then had another company come in and do the concrete for the floor and my cousin helped me with the water and electrical.

I'll try to get pictures up later today.

moneyisflying · Nov 22, 2017

Here are the pics. Sorry they are late. Here is National Barn Company putting up my barn. The whole process took about 3 days. They probably could have done it in 2, but I had to have my county come out and inspect during the process to get the needed permits to continue the build as they went.

moneyisflying · Nov 22, 2017

Next, I hired a company to come in and pour the concrete. At the time I thought this was a little odd, as I had always figured they would want the concrete poured before the barn went up, but apparently National Barn Company didn't want the concrete done first.

moneyisflying · Nov 22, 2017

I ended up finding a bunch of cheap insulation sheets on Craigslist that I bought for the insulation. I cut each piece and used canned spray foam and some wood to hold them in place. This is one thing that took what seemed like forever to complete. It was tedius, and what little time I had here and there never seemed enough to get much done. Took me a couple years literally. But I just finished putting it all up last week.

moneyisflying · Nov 22, 2017

Next issue I needed to address was how to heat the barn. I wanted to do electric heat, as I have done that in my garage, and it works awesome! But my barn is quite a bit bigger, and after researching the units I would need to heat it, I realized my electric bill was going to go up steeply if I wanted to go that route. So, I decided on a wood burning furnace instead. I have a ton of wood available to me for free (more than I could ever cut and burn honestly) so this seemed like a good solution.

I bought a 55 gallon barrel for 5 dollars, and bought a stove kit for about 35 more dollars. I had to burn the paint off and set it all up before I installed the kit. I also cut a couple holes in the back and fabricated some pipes to go in the furnace. On the pipe portion inside the barrel I drilled a bunch of holes and ran it to a blower on the outside that forced air into the barrel. I gotta say, its very impressive how well this works! It gets the fire going quick and really heats things up amazingly (and for cheap, or in my case basically free).

The final issue was the chimney pipe. I went around and around on this for a while but in the end, I ended up going through the wall instead of through the roof. To do the chimney safely with double wall pipe, and keep everything up to code cost me a few hundred dollars, but worth it in the end to keep things safe.

I have had more than a few fires in the barn now with the furnace, and it does a great job heating the whole barn to T-shirt wearing temps in no time.

moneyisflying · Nov 22, 2017

This brings us up to date at this point. I really hate looking at all the pink insulation. I have decided to paint the ceiling black. So far, I have put a dark grey primer down first on the ceiling to hide the pink. Today I plan on painting it black.

Next up after that the goal is to get the rest of my lights up, and then get some drywall going for the walls.

Stay tuned!

dynahoe · Nov 22, 2017

satin white if you want real good lighting.....roof and walls

moneyisflying · Nov 22, 2017

dynahoe said:
satin white if you want real good lighting.....roof and walls

lol, well, IMO, you can pick any color... ...as long as its black

:evil:

Just got done painting. I wanted a black ceiling. I wanted to hide the raftors and most of all the insulation. I only have about 1/3 of the lighting up and after I put up the drywall (which I likely will paint white, or an off white) and get the rest of the lights in place, I think it will be just where I want it.

benjamintmiller · Nov 22, 2017

I think you should be concerned about a fire with those uncovered insulation sheets. They're really flammable, and they give off some pretty toxic fumes when they burn.

If you want to paint them, you could use an intumescent paint, which is designed to block fire. It can be pretty expensive, though, around $50 / gallon.

moneyisflying · Nov 22, 2017

benjamintmiller said:
I think you should be concerned about a fire with those uncovered insulation sheets. They're really flammable, and they give off some pretty toxic fumes when they burn.

If you want to paint them, you could use an intumescent paint, which is designed to block fire. It can be pretty expensive, though, around $50 / gallon.

Nah. Pretty impressive from a picture that you know exactly what type of insulation I have. lol

First, they melt, they don't catch fire as I have tried them out in an open fire outside. Second, I've already had a bunch of fires in the barn already and have literally got it burning as hot as it could, and nothing gets hot enough to even melt. I have a fire board behind the furnace (not really pictured well, but it's there).

I actually have tried putting some scrap pieces closer to the wood burning furnace to see how close I could get it before it would melt. So far with a piece directly under the furnace just inches away (which was WAY too hot for bare skin to be near without burning) it got soft, but still wouldn't melt. At this point I am more than confident I am fine.

The fire board sheets I have work pretty well. The area behind them are still very cool even with a blazing fire going. The area around them are warm, but far from hot. I was hoping to check it out with a heat gun at some point but touching the areas with my hand give me a pretty good indication of the heat. At that point even with the furnace at its hottest, my future plans for drywall should be fine, and that will further protect the insulation.

If I do get a heat gun and feel like the areas are too warm for my comfort level around the furnace still, I'll just get some more fire board sheets.

klassenl · Nov 22, 2017

moneyisflying said:
Nah. Pretty impressive from a picture that you know exactly what type of insulation I have. lol

Impressive indeed.

NUTTSGT · Nov 23, 2017

I'm guess that you sprayed the ceiling ? Was that a PITA ?

BTW, also moved this to the garage Gallery section.

moneyisflying · Nov 23, 2017

NUTTSGT said:
I'm guess that you sprayed the ceiling ? Was that a PITA ?

BTW, also moved this to the garage Gallery section.

Thanks for the move NUTTSGT!

Yes, I used my paint sprayer to spray the ceiling. I used to paint professionally back in another life before the military. Actually spraying it is pretty easy. Just point and spray. Normally it's the prep involved with spraying that takes forever, but for my barn, the paint was drying before it hit the floor, so virtually no prep was needed.

It only took me a couple hours to spray it all. Had I brushed or rolled all of it, it would have taken me a couple days.

moneyisflying · Nov 26, 2017

So that black paint really did darken the place up a bit. Fortunately for me, I only had about 30% of the lights up at the time. So I installed the other 70% today. Made a BIG difference. The before and after pics don't really do it justice!

Next step will be getting some walls up to hid the rest of that ugly pink insulation. I had planned on going drywall, but after getting some good input in another thread on here, I have decided to go with wood paneling and then will paint it white. I'll even go Satin White as per dynahoe's suggestion here

rebelranger · Nov 27, 2017

Is that a 10ft sidewall? How did you save with National Barn?

moneyisflying · Nov 27, 2017

rebelranger said:
Is that a 10ft sidewall? How did you save with National Barn?

Yes, 10ft walls.

I'll PM you for the details for saving with National Barn Company.

Unruh · Nov 27, 2017

I love this build. I think I would do things very similar to what you went with. Great work!!

moneyisflying · Nov 27, 2017

Unruh said:
I love this build. I think I would do things very similar to what you went with. Great work!!

Thanks dude! It was built on a budget, but money was spent where it needed to be to make it safe, and how it should be.

ATCGA · Nov 27, 2017

I’ve been trying to figure out how to build this exact garage for about 6 months now. After talking to many of the “builders” out there I was about to give up. Running across this thread was a great find for me so thanks and congrats all in one. Looks great and I’m sure you’ll have fun finishing it out just the way you want.

moneyisflying · Nov 28, 2017

ATCGA said:
I’ve been trying to figure out how to build this exact garage for about 6 months now. After talking to many of the “builders” out there I was about to give up. Running across this thread was a great find for me so thanks and congrats all in one. Looks great and I’m sure you’ll have fun finishing it out just the way you want.

Thanks! I hope it's a good barn/shop for me when it's done. Don't give up. National Barn Company did an amazing job for a bargain price. If you are wanting one built by them, PM me and I can save you even more.

A lot of the stuff I have done myself with my free time and on a budget as mentioned earlier, and it has taken a while but it is coming along. If you had a bigger budget than I did, everything I have been doing on my own could have easily been contracted out and my build could have been finished more than a year ago.

ATCGA · Nov 28, 2017

PM sent

moneyisflying · Nov 28, 2017

So, after debating what to put up for walls, it seems with how I put up my 2x4's on my walls, that drywall would not be a good idea. So today I got some affordable wood paneling and started to put up the walls.

I have been experiencing a lot of light differential on this barn! When I had just the pink insulation up and 1/3 rd of the lights, it was lit pretty good. Then I painted the ceiling black and it REALLY dropped the light in the barn. I installed the rest of the lights and it lit it back up nicely! Now as I am putting on these dark brown wood panels, I have a feeling it will darken it up again. But, in the end, I am going to paint them white, so it should lighten everything back up again in the end for the final product. One thing I definitely wanted was good lighting in the barn. I hate not being able to see well when doing projects!

I think putting up this paneling is going to take a while. More so than I had hoped at least, but the weather seems to be holding out pretty good so far, so I may be okay.

moneyisflying · Dec 10, 2017

All the paneling is up! I have spent every last free moment I can in order to try and get this thing going before the snow comes.

I am really glad the wood burning furnace is working well. T-shirt temps are much preferred to the freezing temps while working!

moneyisflying · Dec 10, 2017

It would appear that I am getting this done JUST in time! Fortunately, we only got about an inch, and I am good as long as we don't get several inches as I can still move most of the stuff I need to inside with just an inch or so on the ground.

Next step is to get the paint up. The brown walls really darkened the place up further. I got white (satin) paint at Mendards a few days ago. The barn is warming up as I type this and I hope to get it all painted today.

More to follow!

Whitey1 · Dec 10, 2017

This looks great.

moneyisflying · Dec 10, 2017

Whitey1 said:
Thus looks great.

Thanks!

moneyisflying · Dec 10, 2017

I was able to get the first coat on before noon. One thing is for sure, it will take more than one coat! I am hoping 2 will do the trick. If not, I may need to get more paint if it will need 3 coats.

moneyisflying · Dec 10, 2017

Well, 2 coats is not going to do it. Too many thin spot you can still see through.

moneyisflying · Dec 10, 2017

Here is 3 coats. This honestly is not perfect. I could probably do a 4th coat, but I would have to buy more paint, and to be honest, this is pretty good, especially for a barn

I must say, the white walls REALLY brightened things up in the barn!

lakeroadster · Dec 10, 2017

Tell us more about the paneling.

What is it, thickness, tongue & groove, fiber - strand or ?, etc.

Did you put studs up to attach it to at the seams?

moneyisflying · Dec 10, 2017

lakeroadster said:
Tell us more about the paneling.

What is it, thickness, tongue & groove, etc.

Did you put studs up to attach it to at the seams?

The paneling was pretty thin. 1/8 inch cheap $7.50 a sheet paneling. I just hammered nails into the 2x4's I had in place. Some of them I moved, then I added some vertical 2x4's. It's not nearly as much as normal wall studs seperated 18" apart, but I felt it was good enough to do the job. I'm pretty content with the way it turned out.

patrickg20 · Dec 10, 2017

I like the painted walls, and I really like the black ceiling.

moneyisflying · Dec 10, 2017

patrickg20 said:
I like the painted walls, and I really like the black ceiling.

Thanks Patrick! I think it's a good combo to hide the rafters and still reflect good lighting to the barn.

It's getting close! Just need to rip some 2x6's for the base board and install them and it will be good enough to start moving what I need in. I hope to get it to this point this week.

moneyisflying · Dec 12, 2017

Well, I may have picked a bad day to get my trim boards. I got the idea from another member to rip length wise some 2x6's for some cheap made trim boards. I did get them cheap (only spent about $45). But it started snowing hard on my way home with the boards on the open trailer. The table saw I was using could not do the job as the boards were frozen and wet. I wiped them down best I could, and got that wood burning furnace going. Amazingly, by putting the frozen boards pretty close to the furnace, you could literally watch the frozen water in the boards start to evaporate (got a somewhat cool pic of it).

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