Louisiana Build: 70x60, All Steel, All Welded

nsula_country · Dec 8, 2015

UPDATE 7/7/2017

** Photobucket changed their policies. In order to link to pictures requires $399/yr subscription. I choose not to pay a ransom for this threads pictures. So therefore, I am trying to convert all pictures in this thread from Photobucket to Garage Journal's Album. **

Well it's finally happened. I am starting my dream build. Wife and I feel where we are will be permanent, so here we go! 4200 sq/ft of barn/brewhouse/cave/garage/shop/tractor storage.

Forgive me. I started this thread over... Could not edit title. Did not like the first one. Good to go now! There are not many all welded buildings on here. Figured it deserved to be inserted into the title.

General specifications are as follows:

Main Shop 40'x60'x17' 3/12 pitch roof
2 - Man Doors
2 - 12'x14' roll-up (DBCI 2500 series)
1 - 8'x8' roll-up (DBCI 2500 series)
Fully Insulated (3" fiberglass, I think)
Concrete floor, power trowel finish
One 60' wall will have 2' clear panels at the eve for natural light

Lean-To 30'x60'x14'
Concrete floor, power trowel finish.
The 8'x8' provides access between the main shop and the lean-to

This is the basics. I will provide the details as we progress. There will be some "surprise" additions along the way.

This is a true custom building. I have been planning for years. I have looked at pole barns, stick built, bolt up, tepees, ect... This building is 100% built onsite with structural steel, red iron, and pipe. No prefab parts other than doors.

Main rafters are I-beam. Posts are 5 1/2" drill pipe concreted 3+' deep. Red iron is welded to post and rafters by weld tabs.

Color scheme is BARN RED walls. White roof, gutters, and trim

I will follow up with construction pictures and drawings. This is just the intro.

Enjoy!

CT

nsula_country · Dec 8, 2015

Here is some candy to tide the viewers over until I post actual pictures. I absolutely detest the daylight saving time... Dark at 5 dosen't make it easy to get quality pictures.

General Overview of dimensions. The 12'x14' doors are the same on each end in a pull through arrangement.

These are renderings I created from a metal building site. I cannot remember which one though.

This is all I have for now. It should be enough to provide an idea of what is going on. Actual pictures will follow soon. It should be mostly finished by the end of the week.

Enjoy!

CT

RC000E · Dec 9, 2015

Can't wait til this day comes for myself. I hope I can figure out where I'm staying one day.

Building is awesome looking!

nsula_country · Dec 9, 2015

I am realizing this is going to be time consuming to document a build thread. I am starting from the beginning.

These pictures are from the 3rd week of October.

We needed to replace the culverts in the driveway. I had placed sectional 15"x8' concrete culverts myself in 2010. (You can see the concrete culverts in the first picture.) Two runs, 24' long. Did not realize the fill would need to come up so high, hence the 24' length of the culverts. We ended up with about a 1:1 slope, which is hard to prevent erosion.

Fast forward to this summer and I realized that the dirt had completely blown out from between them and one was washing out. Had it not been for a drought this summer, we would have already lost the driveway.

Here are the two runs of 30"x40' culverts in place. Nice slope vs the 1:1 on the old culverts.

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These pictures are of the spur off the main driveway to the shop driveway. Originally the pond had a natural spillway. We placed two runs of 12"x40' to accommodate the driveway. We will be using the pond levee as a road.

The lay of the land is water runs downhill to the pond and surrounding areas towards a creek bottom... Example, the driveway where the two 30" culverts divert into the creek. Biblical proportions of water when a heavy rain comes and the ground is saturated (like now.)

View media item 71793

Levee Road

Next pictures will be of the building pad and surrounding site.

Enjoy!

CT

JimL · Dec 9, 2015

Nice piece of property!

MacTexas · Dec 10, 2015

Anxious to see how this progresses. Subscribed.

nsula_country · Dec 10, 2015

JimL said:
Nice piece of property!

Thank you JimL. We are on 50 acres. The home and shop are on a corner of a 40 acre square.

MacTexas said:
Anxious to see how this progresses. Subscribed.

MacTexas, stay tuned. Hopefully within a week the build thread will catch up. I have two months of info to post to catch up. Walk doors installed today. Siding and roof should be next week.

Enjoy!

CT

Bib Overalls · Dec 11, 2015

Obviously a serious project. Texas is only place I have seen welded structures like the one you are building in any numbers. Northwestern Louisiana is almost Texas if my recollection is right.

Once you have your shop up what will you do inside? With 50 acres I would suspect tractor, brush hog and mower maintenance will occupy some of the space but there should be room for the occasional hot rod project or something similar.

nsula_country · Dec 12, 2015

Bib Overalls said:
Obviously a serious project. Texas is only place I have seen welded structures like the one you are building in any numbers. Northwestern Louisiana is almost Texas if my recollection is right.

Once you have your shop up what will you do inside? With 50 acres I would suspect tractor, brush hog and mower maintenance will occupy some of the space but there should be room for the occasional hot rod project or something similar.

Bib Overalls,

You are right about Texas being a common site for welded buildings. May have something to do with used oil field pipe availability. In the past decade, Louisiana has really boomed in the oil and gas production. Hence drill pipe is abundant.

Plans are as follows:

Tractors (3), implements (8), trailers (2), small camper, fel attachments (3), lawn mower and golf cart under lean-to. May not all fit, may not want all of it under roof. Some may go in enclosed building... We'll see how it fits.

Main shop will be mostly for work and projects. I do have a 1979 C20 that is 1st to receive surgery. I have 2 older tractors that need various repairs/rebuilds/repaints. Also plan to build about a 16'x24' kitchenette, bathroom, office. I will set all of my reloading stuff up in there. It will also be my brew room as I'm a homebrewer as well.

Camping this weekend. 81* yesterday, 70* today, mid december in louisiana! Next week I hope to catch up on the build thread. Plenty of pictures to upload.

CT

farmcat · Dec 15, 2015

Subscribed....Looking forward to this build. What a beautiful piece of property.

davo727 · Dec 25, 2015

Im posting to bookmark this and also because im going to go the same route on welded steel frame. Steel is cheap right now and surplus steel is really cheap so I will be buying after new years for my project.

1/2 Cup · Dec 25, 2015

Looking forward to seeing your dream come together.

Regards

nsula_country · Dec 28, 2015

Sorry for the delay and suspense! Holidays and all I have been not really too busy, but haven't turned on the computer in two weeks. I use my phone for the small stuff, but its a PITA to upload pics and type out a build thread on a phone.

Enough of all that! On to the pics!

Pad Pictures. These were taken on October 21, 2015

Starting to form pad. No dirt brought in. I had some large dozer piles buried and they dug out the clay to use on the pad. Got to love living with hills.

Pipeline flagging. We need to put 10"-12" of fill over this for the driveway to the shop. Not everyday you have to cross a natural gas pipeline for utilities and driveway!

Enjoy,

CT

nsula_country · Dec 28, 2015

These pictures are from November 23rd-25th. Build has started. Drilling the holes, setting posts, forms, ect.

Total squareness came out < 3/4" on 4200 sq/ft. I was happy.

Drilling holes. Just a tractor and auger.

Setting out concrete for the posts. And, yes, they mixed it with water. Had they tried to pour dry mix in the holes I was going to nut up!!

Posts going in. 5" pipe (5 1/2" OD) looks like about 3/8" wall. I was concerned they were going to blow holes through it when welding. (Welding joke, if you weld, you got it.)

Forms going up.

Detail of the wall that is under the drop shed. The 1.5" angle iron here is the metal edge, lip, whatever that will seal off the siding. The other three sides have the typical 1.5" x 1.5" strip nailed to the form boards.

Custom fabricated I-Beam trusses. 40' span, 3/12 pitch.

The vintage classic... The workhorse that will do the heavy lifting. The LULL.

Enjoy,

CT

nsula_country · Dec 28, 2015

We now have trusses up on main 40'x60'x17.

This was December 2, 2015. Weather in the south is unpredictable in November/December. Wet, raining, in the 70's and 80's with 2000% humidity.

Enjoy,

CT

nsula_country · Dec 28, 2015

I missed concrete day. They had started pouring at daylight. I had to go to work to fund the project. The finishers did not leave until 9pm and used headlights to power trowel. About 61 yards were poured.

These pictures were of the vapor barrier and wire/rebar... ***** when its dark around 5pm.

December 4th, 2015...

Enjoy!

CT

nsula_country · Dec 28, 2015

I have to upload more pics from my phone. May be a couple days (or couple hours) until I continue the build thread.

This is a lot of work. Upload pics, arrange by date, remember what they did a month ago, write a post that makes sense, blah, blah, blah... Oh well, not pics, it didn't happen!

Watching the Cincinnati vs Denver game right now and Denver is making a comeback. Personally, I'm going for Cincinnati. Its Fantasy Football final playoff week.

When the dust settles, I'll place 1st in a 10 team league and 2nd place in a 16 team league. Nice little payday to help fund the beast!

Enjoy,

CT

kderacing · Jan 6, 2016

Wow! I honestly don't know what else to say. That is going to be a fantastic building when it's all done. Congrats.

Bib Overalls · Jan 6, 2016

nsula_country said:
This is a lot of work. Upload pics, arrange by date, remember what they did a month ago, write a post that makes sense, blah, blah, blah... Oh well, not pics, it didn't happen!

Your efforts are appreciated. Your build is a little different from most and I, for one, am enjoying this thread immensely.

Is that your plantation house in the background of some of the pictures?

nsula_country · Jan 7, 2016

Thank you Bib. I have trolled for years on this site watching others builds. The knowledge gained is immeasurable! So I feel like I need to return the favor. I have more pictures and will upload them by this weekend.

The building is built, less doors. I am ordering them this week. Two 12x14 insulated and an 8x8 insulated. All will be DBCI 2750 series heavy roll ups. I'm going with insulated more for summer sunlight heat reflection rather than holding heat in.

Yes, that is our house... Its not a big as it looks. Many think its an old plantation or farm house. That was the intent. Actually it was built in 2011. Built to look traditional and old. I think we pulled it off. The red building by the house is our chicken coop.

Enjoy!

CT

j p smith · Jan 7, 2016

Wow great project and progress

1Garageman · Jan 7, 2016

Great looking start!
I am defiantly following this build!

mtechgunman · Jan 12, 2016

Subscribed! Great build so far! Love the steel.....

gnarlyleech · Feb 1, 2016

Nice build. Thats a big plan

nsula_country · Mar 30, 2016

All,

I am alive and the project is still continuing.

Short update. No pictures yet... I will provide some soon, I promise.

Building is finished, doors are installed. What has held me up has been Rainpocalypse 2016 and waiting on the POCO for service. We experienced massive floods here this month, it was all over the National News. We were on high ground at home, just dealt with flooded roads and businesses.

POCO finally got the 610' extension ran in. 25KVA transformer and pedestal in place. Now my fun begins. About 110' of underground to the building, set loadcenter and start lighting and wiring.

CT

tdcisco1 · Mar 30, 2016

red iron & drill pipe =the makings for an awsome building ! waiting for the pics...

classicharleyj · Mar 31, 2016

Hey CT... looks great.. I grew up in Rayville so I recognize the "look" of the place..
Yep.. ya'll got a TON of rain.. my sister still lives on our home place and said it was crazy.
Jim

nsula_country · May 10, 2016

Sorry guys, It's been A WHILE!

These pictures are from December 16th-18th 2015... Concrete poured and started to skin and insulate. Insulation is more of a radiant barrier than a true "insulation". The rollup doors are also insulated in radiant barrier. Here in the deep south, low 30's is cold. But we have many months above 85* Radiant barrier insulation reflects heat away.

Also you will notice the "Skylight" panels. Wish I had them on both sides now. Sunset is on lean-to side. Still, they help.

First side. Notice the all-terrain tracked scissor lift. COOL!

Here you can see the skylights.

Trim going on.

More trim...

Trim work, facing the sun, 3 year old phone (which by the way fell in a toilet, lost some pics) :lol_hitti

Another side receiving siding!

Lean-To Trimmings. I like.

These pictures are about 5 months old. I will continue to upload in chronological order to keep the build thread a "Build Thread!"

More to follow!

CT

fireeqpsrv · May 10, 2016

I like the idea of the idea of the skylights. I must say you are definitely make progress

1/2 Cup · May 10, 2016

Wow, your build looks awesome, many thanks for the update. :thumbup:

Regards

nsula_country · May 10, 2016

Build is progressing. Have power, doors are all installed, and 3 walls have OSB 8' high. Most important, there is a fridge for cold beer!

Pictures are catching up to the current state!

CT

nsula_country · May 11, 2016

More pictures. Mid-Late December 2015. Showing the details of the welded construction and trim style.

This is all 100% custom. Nothing pre-fab. The only tools I saw them use was; welding machines, grinders with cutoff wheels, screw guns, and a nibbler (to cut colored metal). EVERYTHING red iron, including the 5" pipe and I-Beam was cut with grinders and metabo blades!

Skylight, East Wall and Gutter.

3 Walls done.

Starting to Trim Out the Lean-To and Gutter installed.

More Trim Out on Lean-To.

Lean-To Trim Out. Notice the way the braces are trimmed. Nice touch.

CT

nsula_country · May 11, 2016

More build pictures.

Lean-To red iron purlins.

Red Iron to Pipe braces.

Red Iron to Pipe Corner Braces

Lean-To "Eyebrow" trim out framing.

Purlin instead of base angle. This was done because I wanted to finish the walls out. This is not standard practice, normally it is red iron base angle.

Man Door Framing.

Stay tuned. I will continue to post pictures to catch up on the build progress!

CT

LXCam · May 11, 2016

Wow!, that's going to be nice.

nsula_country · May 11, 2016

Thanks LXCam. I'm trying! Does your user name have anything to do with GM LSX engines?

welder57 · May 11, 2016

Nice job. The channel @ the base will help a lot on the inside finished detail. Where did you get the outside panels and trim? Are going to put metal liner panels on the inside as well? Keep up the good work!!!!

nsula_country · May 11, 2016

February 15th 2016, doors arrived. February 21st, we installed them. Well, they installed them. I was just the tractor operator.

DOORS! You have no idea how long I had waited for this day!

The Workhorse. You have no idea how much you depend on a front end loader until you don't have one. 1962 Farmall 504 engine failed. 2014 LS P7010C filled its void.

12 wide x 14 high roll-up. OSHA approved pallet on a front end loader and a door curtain on a scissor lift! :eyecrazy:

North end doors.

South end door.

Filling in the gaps! This post brings us to almost March 2016.

CT

nsula_country · May 11, 2016

welder57 said:
Nice job. The channel @ the base will help a lot on the inside finished detail. Where did you get the outside panels and trim? Are going to put metal liner panels on the inside as well? Keep up the good work!!!!

I believe the panels came from Tri Steel Metals in Effie, LA.

Metal Liner panels (reverse rolled) were the original plan, 12' tall. Decided on OSB 8' tall instead. Cheaper, more impact resistant, and provides something to screw things to... Used self drilling wafer head screws to attach OSB to the purlins. Will paint some light color other than white. Maybe light gray to inspire me to epoxy the floor.

CT

930dreamer · May 11, 2016

The build is looking good.

R. Deschain · May 11, 2016

My uncle was a steel builder in NE Texas. Deport to be exact. He ran Sparks Steel for over 40 years until he retired and sold to his son-in-law. He built Pole Barns, dairy barns, retail stores, and even houses in steel. He built mostly red steel frames and used steel studs as infill, but surely a lot of pipe was used as well.

Welded steel structures are fantastic for longevity, durability, efficiency, maintenance, etc. I wish I could build like that in Seattle. I tried with my current garage project and got shut down my all the builders I contacted as well and the city permit office - long story. Color me jealous!

Louisiana Build: 70x60, All Steel, All Welded

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