salguod
Well-known member
I've been here for a little over a year. I posted a planning thread last May and I signed the contract to have it built in December. Construction started a few weeks ago and has progressed nicely, I figured I should start a build thread.
I'm building a 30x40 pole barn with a 12' interior height. I'll have a concrete floor to support a 2 post lift, 2 10'x10' overhead doors for vehicles and one 8'x7' door to get my mower out. No plumbing and no heat yet, but I'm am insulating (R19 bats in the walls, blown to R38 in the trusses). I looked at a number of builders, including well known national companies, and building kits to do it myself or have hired done. I liked the idea of DIY, but I'm at a stage in life where I can afford to hire it done and, realistically, DIY was going to take years to complete. In the end, everyone was within 10% of each other, so I went with a local builder with a great reputation, JD Construction.
Once the contract was signed, he estimated it would be May before he could start. That meant I needed to get my prep work done in the spring. I started in March. i needed to clear 3 trees, 2 pines where the driveway would be and an Ash where the building would be. I also needed to replace the 3' wide man gate with a 12' wide vehicle gate.
I stared with the Pines. I had only helped with dropping a couple trees, never done one myself. The first went smoothly, dropped right where I wanted to. Got it cut up and piled neatly.
The second was a bit more trouble. Its natural lean was to the rear, toward the fence. In my inexperience, I didn't properly evaluate the tree and tried to drop it the opposite direction. I had the notch cut and was well through the trunk and it wasn't going anywhere. I was concerned to cut more, so I quit and called a friend who knows what he's doing. His first comment was "You're going to lose the fence". He came up with a plan that, if everything went perfect, would drop the tree parallel to the fence, but he still felt it was likely to land on it. But, fate was with us and it came down parallel.
Next, was the much larger ash, which was half dead from the ash borers. I learned my lesson and took a real good look as to where it was leaning before I started and then called my friend in for his opinion. We agreed upon a direction and it came down without issue. This was in early May, so I was pushing it, assuming my builder's estimate was correct.
Then there was the small issue of clearing the branches. It took 3 loads with my truck and a friend's 16' landscape trailer to get rid of them. Thankfully, my builder was not correct on his start date because I had brake issues with my truck and didn't get them cleared until the first week of June.
Literally, the day after the last was cleared (the truck was actually still loaded) the lumber bundle arrived.
Construction began the following week, I'll pick that up in the next post.
I'm building a 30x40 pole barn with a 12' interior height. I'll have a concrete floor to support a 2 post lift, 2 10'x10' overhead doors for vehicles and one 8'x7' door to get my mower out. No plumbing and no heat yet, but I'm am insulating (R19 bats in the walls, blown to R38 in the trusses). I looked at a number of builders, including well known national companies, and building kits to do it myself or have hired done. I liked the idea of DIY, but I'm at a stage in life where I can afford to hire it done and, realistically, DIY was going to take years to complete. In the end, everyone was within 10% of each other, so I went with a local builder with a great reputation, JD Construction.
Once the contract was signed, he estimated it would be May before he could start. That meant I needed to get my prep work done in the spring. I started in March. i needed to clear 3 trees, 2 pines where the driveway would be and an Ash where the building would be. I also needed to replace the 3' wide man gate with a 12' wide vehicle gate.
I stared with the Pines. I had only helped with dropping a couple trees, never done one myself. The first went smoothly, dropped right where I wanted to. Got it cut up and piled neatly.
The second was a bit more trouble. Its natural lean was to the rear, toward the fence. In my inexperience, I didn't properly evaluate the tree and tried to drop it the opposite direction. I had the notch cut and was well through the trunk and it wasn't going anywhere. I was concerned to cut more, so I quit and called a friend who knows what he's doing. His first comment was "You're going to lose the fence". He came up with a plan that, if everything went perfect, would drop the tree parallel to the fence, but he still felt it was likely to land on it. But, fate was with us and it came down parallel.
Next, was the much larger ash, which was half dead from the ash borers. I learned my lesson and took a real good look as to where it was leaning before I started and then called my friend in for his opinion. We agreed upon a direction and it came down without issue. This was in early May, so I was pushing it, assuming my builder's estimate was correct.
Then there was the small issue of clearing the branches. It took 3 loads with my truck and a friend's 16' landscape trailer to get rid of them. Thankfully, my builder was not correct on his start date because I had brake issues with my truck and didn't get them cleared until the first week of June.
Literally, the day after the last was cleared (the truck was actually still loaded) the lumber bundle arrived.
Construction began the following week, I'll pick that up in the next post.
