24x30 Pole Barn Shop in East Texas

aggie91 · Jul 13, 2015

Well I started this whole process back in early April. We started framing this morning.

After researching what I wanted the building to be and what size I was comfortable with in the yard I have, I elected to do a 24' wide, 30' deep, 12' tall Pole Barn with one 10x10 roll up door and one man door. The slab will be 4" concrete with 3/8" rebar on 12" or 16" centers both ways. Not sure on the spacing right now.

I chose Ark-La-Tex Builders to do the building. I looked at quite a few others and they had the best price for the specs I was looking at on the building. 5 Starr was another I looked at too. Terry Fuller is the sales rep that I am working with. He has been real easy to deal with. We went over the contract and the specs and he answered all my questions at that time. He told me once I had my Pad ready, I would be put in line for construction. Once the pad was ready, we would do the contract and get the colors and door locations finalized.

I had to do some dirt work in my yard for the pad. With my luck, it started raining the same week I met with Terry. I ended up bringind 36 yards of dirt for the pad. Lucky for me, I do business with a local contractor with my day job, so he was able to cut me a deal on getting the dirt hauled and delivered to my house. My oldest son's best friend has a nice tractor with a bucket and a box blade, so he got the job to do the dirt work with my direction/supervision. Here are some pictures of the pad work:

Got started cutting the driveway back to the shop that will run down one side, its about 10' wide. We used that dirt to start filling in the low spots.

Then the rains started...Over the rest of April and all of May we would work a day or so between rains and getting dirt delivered...Finally, during Memorial day weekend we made the last push to finish the pad and did some packing and rolling during the last week of May. Called Terry and he and I got together and signed the contract on June 1st to get me in line...5-7 weeks out to start...

Here is what I looked like yesterday and for the last 6 weeks:

Thanks for looking!

aggie91 · Jul 13, 2015

Well after a very long wait, I got the call that they are ready to start my shop last week. Unfortunately, I was on vacation...

Last night I called him, set up a time to meet him this morning. Last night I marked the one side wall of where I wanted the shop on the pad and pulled a string line for reference. Met the Framing Crew this morning about 9am. Spent a few minutes discussing with them where I wanted the shop and showed them the string line to use as a reference.

By 9:30am here is where they were at:

They have a crew of 6, the guy in the white T shirt and straw hat is Matt, he is the lead for the crew, its him, his son and 4 other guys. He use to frame houses and now only does these pole barns for Ark-La-Tex builders. He said I should be surprised when I get home today. By the time I left at 9:45am today, they were setting the second corner post. They are not messing around. :thumbup:

aggie91 · Jul 13, 2015

My son sent me this at noon...

Chadddada · Jul 13, 2015

This is almost the same exact building I am currently specing out with Graber ( http://www.polebarn.com/ ). The only difference may be the width of the rollup door. Looking forward to seeing the progress on this build this week!

Chadddada · Jul 14, 2015

What kinda progress did they make yesterday?

aggie91 · Jul 14, 2015

Got home after work yesterday and had a complete framed out shop! My wife said they finished up around 3pm that afternoon, cleaned up everything and left. The area looked good and only found a few dropped nails on the "floor" area of the shop and maybe 3 small pieces of scrapped that they missed. No big deal for me. They used Paslode ring shank nails to put the structure together with, found 2 "nest" of the nails that you load into a framing nailer.

Here is what it looked like when I got home:

My two youngest kids think its a jungle gym to climb on. My daughter has no fear, she was hanging off the top of the rood truss just after I took this pic. Had to tell her to put her feet back on the boards. I was more concerned with her falling than she was... :lol:

I worked on locating the footings I am going to put in for my future 2 post lift. The whole floor is going to be 4" thick, but in the area for the lift, I am going to add a 4'x4' footing that is a total of 8" thick for the posts. Its overkill from what most the lift specs have been. I marked out the areas last night with string at the top of the form boards and started to dig them out. It got late so I missed getting any pictures. I will get some when I get home today.

aggie91 · Jul 16, 2015

Here are the pictures of the places where I have started working on the footings for the 2 post lift that I hope to install in the future.

The ground is so hard that just a shovel was not going to work, had to break out the grubbing hoe to break it up.

Got some bad news from Ark-La-Tex on Tuesday. I called to find out the schedule for the next step which is the concrete. I was told it will be at least 4 weeks. WTH, I don't understand that. SO, I called a concrete company that I do business with for my day job. He came and looked my building and quoted me a price for doing the work. I have a call into Terry at Ark-La-Tex to see if I can work something out to speed up this build. My guy can get to me right now, could even do it this weekend if I can get an answer today.

We will see how it goes....

aggie91 · Jul 17, 2015

Spoke with Terry yesterday about the concrete. He said his allowance for the concrete is $2.60/sqft. My guy will do it for me at $4.45/sqft. Well that is a $1328 difference that I would have to shell out to improve my lead time by 3 weeks. That is to much for me at this point. I guess I am waiting on their concrete crew to get to me. Per their scheduler, the week of August 10th is my guess as to when they show up.

Terry did say that the company owner is working on an alternative solution for getting more concrete done to get them back on track. Maybe they can get that resolved and get rolling on my before 8/10/15. I will just have to wait and see...

sublime68charger · Jul 17, 2015

They won't put the tin on till after cement work is done?

If that's they way they build down there okay.

YukonXL04 · Jul 17, 2015

Bad new on the concrete, Similar thing happened to me. Slab was formed and ready to pour, Contractor calls in the concrete, all the suppliers were 3 weeks out. After all of the may rain I guess concrete is booming right now! lol

Good luck!

Tejas TJ · Jul 17, 2015

I'm curious what Ark-La-Tex is charging your for a turnkey 24x30? I've been planning a 20x30 or 22x30 for sometime now.

I live 45 min. north of their Dallas office.

lakeroadster · Aug 1, 2015

sublime68charger said:
They won't put the tin on till after cement work is done?

If that's they way they build down there okay.

From what I have seen that's the way most pole building floors are done. Much easier access. I had one built in Ohio, and now one in Colorado, both were done this way.

Lots of advantages, no disadvantages.

aggie91 said:
Got some bad news from Ark-La-Tex on Tuesday. I called to find out the schedule for the next step which is the concrete. I was told it will be at least 4 weeks. WTH, I don't understand that. .....

Wonder why your contractor didn't call and schedule the concrete 4 weeks ago to get into the schedule? Seems like they should know about backlogs if they are erecting these buildings on a regular basis.

CNGsaves · Aug 1, 2015

Might work out better for you anyway OP with the concrete delay. Cooler weather would be better for the curing of concrete.

Also, delay will give more time for all that fill dirt you added to settle. I'd actually be wetting down that fill dirt to help in settling process. Good luck.

aggie91 · Aug 13, 2015

YukonXL04 said:
Bad new on the concrete, Similar thing happened to me. Slab was formed and ready to pour, Contractor calls in the concrete, all the suppliers were 3 weeks out. After all of the may rain I guess concrete is booming right now! lol

Good luck!

Yeah, he is doing a few jobs up in the DFW area and has been told the same thing. Here it is pretty much the next day to get it...

Tejas TJ said:
I'm curious what Ark-La-Tex is charging your for a turnkey 24x30? I've been planning a 20x30 or 22x30 for sometime now.

I live 45 min. north of their Dallas office.

My price is $10,686. The ads are for the 12' tall walls and insulation in the roof.

lakeroadster said:
From what I have seen that's the way most pole building floors are done. Much easier access. I had one built in Ohio, and now one in Colorado, both were done this way.

Lots of advantages, no disadvantages.

Wonder why your contractor didn't call and schedule the concrete 4 weeks ago to get into the schedule? Seems like they should know about backlogs if they are erecting these buildings on a regular basis.

That is the same thing I asked him...He just uses one crew to do the work to finish the concrete and they are way behind because of the rain. Well it has not rained here in Longview for 2 months....

CNGsaves said:
Might work out better for you anyway OP with the concrete delay. Cooler weather would be better for the curing of concrete.

Also, delay will give more time for all that fill dirt you added to settle. I'd actually be wetting down that fill dirt to help in settling process. Good luck.

Yes, I agree the cooler weather helps. It has settled and hardened up quite well. Should make for a good base.

Well, today his dirt guy is here to finish up the final grade of the dirt before the concrete crew comes, I still don't have a firm date as to when that will be...I spoke with the area manager yesterday and he explained his delays and is trying to work out a deal with another concrete contractor in my area.

I am at the point of just wait and see what happens. I don't have any real deadlines that the building has to be completed by...

welder57 · Aug 13, 2015

I cannot see any pictures, would like to see how your project is working out.

aggie91 · Aug 13, 2015

Pictures show up when I view the thread, they are linked to my photobucket account. I have not posted any pictures since July 16th. Nothing has changed since then. I will get a few tonight when I get home and post those.

aggie91 · Aug 19, 2015

Got a call early Monday morning from the concrete guys. He said they are on the way to finish my slab. I told them the grade work was not complete, he said no problem, they would take care of it.

By 9am they showed up and got started...

Around 11am the concrete truck showed up, had to take down my gates and cut a few limbs down, but got that truck back to the shop...

By 3:30pm, they had finished and loaded up...

All in all, I happy with the floor. They did my extra in the front for the apron, and my extra 4 foot square footings for my future lift without any extra charges. Finish on the surface looks good and smooth. It needs 7-10 days to cure before I get on it with any real weight, but so far it looks good.

Now I wait for the skin and doors to be installed...He said originally it would be 1 or 2 days after the concrete, but yesterday when I called, he said I was building number 3 in line and it would be next week...

aggie91 · Aug 19, 2015

They came back yesterday and removed the form boards around the front apron. I did not get home until after dark last night, so I have not really seen it since they pulled the boards off. I will have a look tonight.

inovermyhead · Aug 19, 2015

The building is looking good. I remember seeing another member on a different forum in Tyler that used them. He was happy w/the building but not the amount of time it took them to finish. Hope they speed things up for you.

aggie91 · Aug 28, 2015

Well, Stuff is happening at my place today. My oldest son came home for lunch after his classes at Kilgore JC and found this going on in the yard: :rocker:

There is one issue that was not taken care of before the skinning crew arrived. I had one skirt board pull away from the slab. With it bowed out almost 1/2", it will cause issues later. Korbin (my son) ran to the hardware store and got a few TapCon anchors to attach it to the slab. The crew leader did not like the fact that his boss had not told him about the issue and he was upset with him and there was no reason the owner (or Korbin) should have to fix it. He told Korbin that he would fix it before the skin goes up. Korbin will be keeping an eye on things today while I'm at work.

Here is the gap before the "fix":

We will see what happens today. The crew told Korbin they would finish the skin today.

aggie91 · Sep 1, 2015

Here is the gapped area after the fix:

aggie91 · Sep 1, 2015

They were still working when I got home that afternoon.

They finished up at about 5:00pm, cleaned up their mess and off they went. I locked up the house and headed to the High School's home opener for the evening.

Looks like our dog Brodie got in this picture!

aggie91 · Sep 1, 2015

Here are a few pictures that Korbin took this past weekend of the finished building:

This one has the Patio Cover leading up to the door like it was a driveway, I thought it was a neat shot from up on the roof.

Called the city for the Final Inspection. If I get a green tag, then it is move in time this weekend! :thumbup:

aggie91 · Sep 4, 2015

The building passed its final inspection, so now I have a certificate of completion.

The last couple of evenings, we have been working on getting some lights hung in the shop. I bought 6 - 8' long T8 Fluorescent fixtures. Each one has 4 - 4' bulbs. I got the 6500K color bulbs with 2850 lumens each, it should be real bright. We are hanging them so that they run the length of the building in 2 rows. Last night we go one row mounted and will work on getting the other row installed Saturday morning. Things are a little up in the air as to when I will get the power feed installed to the shop, but these lights only pull about a total of about 7 amps, so I will initially run them with an extension cord to the hose while I install other things and get the power feed put in to the panel in the shop.

Its another Home football game tonight, so no work this evening on it, but it is a 3 day weekend, so I hope to make some progress and start moving stuff from storage! Tools and Compressor is first on the list....

Hope everyone enjoys their Labor Day weekend!

cajunfirehawk · Sep 4, 2015

Mind if I ask what something like that ran you price wise, nice building...
EDIT found it:My price is $10,686

aggie91 · Sep 8, 2015

Glad you found your answer Todd. That price is just the building and the slab. I have about $400 in the dirt work before they started and so far about $1000 in the electrical stuff. My budget for this building is $12k. I should meet that, but I am stopping short of finishing out the inside like I wanted to do. I will do that as money allows...

So, I was not as productive as planned on getting things done in the shop. I did manage to get the lights all hung and wired in. I tested them out with an extension cord from the house and they all work like I planned. I had to stop at 6pm on Saturday so that I could watch the Aggies BTHO of the Sun Devils! Whoop!

My apologies for the blurry pictures, I was using my phone and did not have on my reading glasses to tell if they where in focus when I took them, anyway here are some pictures:

I mounted the switches next to the man door so they are easy to get to in the dark.

Tested them out, All off -

One row on -

Both rows on -

Overall I think it will be enough light for now. I did manage to get the breaker panel mounted so that I could start running wire for the wall outlets. For now I can turn on the lights using the cord to the house, so I can work a bit later in the evenings if I choose so. This week is going to be mostly about the kids activities, so not much time to work on the shop.

Next major step is get the power ran from the main panel on the house to the sub-panel in the shop. I have all the wire, breakers and conduit for the job, just need a trencher to get the stuff buried...

Again, Thanks to all those that are checking in and watching...

aggie91 · Sep 14, 2015

We had beautiful weather this weekend for outside work. I got the back yard mowed and started picking up rocks and concrete that was around the shop. Waited on my son's buddy to come over with a trencher. He finally showed up at about 4;30 pm after I was told in would be 9am when they should have come over.

Well, and hour later I had my trench dug from my main panel to the shop and was ready to drop in the conduit. My oldest son helped get the conduit glued up and connected on each end. Got to be dinner time so we stopped for the day on Saturday. Sunday was another good day to be outside. I did not have much help after church and lunch since most of my family was at a gymnastics competition in Frisco for my daughter. I stayed at home with my youngest boy who is in a cast from his toes to his hip and did not want to travel that far...We went to the store and got stuff for his science project and then I got to work on wiring up the shop. I was able to get all the plugs for the 110v outlets and the ones for the compressor and the welder all installed and wired up. I got the main power feed from the house panel to the sub-panel in the shop wired up too. We are good to start moving in!

I am not an electrician, but I think it looks good for what I was able to do by myself. I did not take pictures of the trench and conduit since that is pretty common stuff. I will lay in a coax line for cable TV to the shop before covering up the conduit in the trench.

Sub-panel before I started:

Sub-panel when I finished (minus the cover):

South wall outlets:
Two of them hidden behind the radio...

and Welder Outlet and two more 110 outlets:

West wall outlets:
Also found a good place to mount my battery charger for my Ryobi tools!
Orange line is the wiring for the compressor outlet on the outside of the west wall.

My large workbench will go on the West wall centered on the post that has the charger mounted on it. The welding table will go in the southwest corner. On the east wall I have some 30" deep, 8' wide, 12' tall pallet racks going up for storage.

That's it for the this past weekend... :rocker:

aggie91 · Oct 5, 2015

Finally had a free weekend not committed to something to do with football.

By the end of September, I had completely moved out of my storage units and all the stuff was just crammed into my new shop. So Saturday morning, the weather was nice and I got started on get things in order, or at least put away to get into the shop.

Here is a view looking into the shop from the man door Saturday morning:

And into the overhead door:

Korbin came out and help move a bunch of stuff. By the end of the day we could see the light of having room in the shop to move around.

Sunday, got a late start, about 10am since we skipped church. But by the end of the day we had this:

Still have some things to move around and to cull out a bunch of stuff, but we can work on things now if we need to.

aggie91 · Oct 5, 2015

I worked on one project Sunday after lunch. My engine hoist is one of those fold up units and I have never been happy about the way the legs fold up and lean making it some what unbalanced when folded up.

I have a couple pieces of sheet metal angle with some holes in it that seemed like it could make a good solution to my issue.

So I thought of how I could make it better and came up with this mock up with a C-clamp:

A simple ball bungee holds the legs in position during storage:

So a little bit of welding and paint I have a finished solution. The angle even gives me a place to store the lifting chains and other items...

Not a bod solution for about 30 minutes worth of my time.

C_F · Oct 5, 2015

I like the fix for your engine hoist. I never understood why they made the legs lean that far back in the first place.
Found your build thread for the first time today, and enjoyed being able to see it completed all in one sitting!

Congrats, and I'll enjoy checking back in for updates.

egnorant · Oct 5, 2015

Nice! Roof over your head, concrete underfoot, shop dog, lights and electricity AND knocked out your first project. Big thumbs up from me!

What kind of projects are you going to be doing?

Bruce

aggie91 · Oct 6, 2015

C_F said:
I like the fix for your engine hoist. I never understood why they made the legs lean that far back in the first place.
Found your build thread for the first time today, and enjoyed being able to see it completed all in one sitting! Congrats, and I'll enjoy checking back in for updates.

Thanks for checking in. I will update as I get things done, so be patient. :lol:

egnorant said:
Nice! Roof over your head, concrete underfoot, shop dog, lights and electricity AND knocked out your first project. Big thumbs up from me!

What kind of projects are you going to be doing?

Bruce

I mostly do cars, but I have some other interests right now that I will be working on before getting back on my '65 C10 that I have has since I was 16.

First up will be a dresser for my wife that belonged to her Grandmother. The wood has dried out and needs some refinishing. Next will be some updates/repairs to my wife's 1995 Ski Brendella, maybe even some paint work on it. After the Dresser, the boat will come in along with a new frame for my '65 that I will work on at the same time since I can't really use the boat until next May..

Kail · Jun 21, 2020

Hi Karl,
I started looking into this company today. Starting to compare the mueller prefab to the pole barn style. I like that this company is all in one and the cost is much cheaper. Now that you have had it for while how is it holding up. Your experience with Ark-La-Tex ended well?

24x30 Pole Barn Shop in East Texas

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