Finished apartment in pole barn?

[cyamaha2007]

Zoning is a non issue and we are looking at putting a 2 story apartment in a 48x150x20h morton pole barn. I would make the apartment 20x48 both stories. Would you tie it into the 3 corner walls or make it free standing in the shell. I dont know what is best.

 

[tomroblee]

I hate to sound like Clinton, but it all depends on what you mean by "tie it into" and "free standing".

If you want any windows in the apartments, you virtually have to use the existing walls of the pole barn as the walls of your apartment.

You don't mention whether the pole barn and apartment are both in the design stages or if it's an existing barn. If the barn is still in the design stages, the apartment can be fully integrated into the design and construction. If it's an existing barn, the existing walls may or may not be strong or stiff enough to be any benefit in the construction of the apartment.

You say that zoning isn't an issue, but are you subject to any building codes?

 

[little d]

since you have the shell there already, id frame out between the posts on the 3 existing walls, stick frame the forth, set the interior walls, set the floor joists, and repeat. if your worried about the 3 existing walls not being "true". run a dry string top and bottom and adjust the framing between the post, this will give ya a nice straight wall.

 

[hetkind]

The big issue is load and foundation. A pole barn is not designed to hang a heavy second deck only from the exterior posts. You need to put some supports in that will transfer some of the load to the slab.

Howard

 

[cyamaha2007]

Yes it is a existing shell. There will be windows but i was going to make them have deep sills. If i were to frame it all out and not sheet the 3 walls that contact the barn will the building he and haw? I know the wall is alot "rigideder" with plywood on it. The walls in the barn are almost perfect. I have to deal with fire code and thats it. thank you for the help

 

[aar0s]

I was thinking about doing the same thing, building a big *** pole barn and putting an apartment in it till i could build the house. Id tie at least two of the walls to the exterior and if your careful about where you put the bathroom then you could use it as a secondary entrance with access to the shop, no tracking thorugh the house to take that power number 1 or 2 when your working in the shop.
the only code i have to worry about is plumbing, and in the county im wanting to build in thats even questionable.

 

[brownbagg]

it would not be legal here because you would need a certificate of occuipy here. and the pole barn would not meet code as a living quarter. foundation be one of the problems.

 

[WNYflyer]

I would be very interested in how the building codes and especially fire code would look at this building, especially with another roof over top. I bet you would blow your local building official's mind not to mention your insurance company’s with this. I would talk to them before I put too much thought into this. Sounds very interesting though.


If they allow you to do what you are thinking then I would be looking at making your new structure free standing so as to put no new load on the existing pole barn. I would not even look at attaching “structurally” to the existing because I couldn’t see any building official allowing that without an engineeer signing off on it. Then I would see what kind of new foundation system I would need to support the new structure. Assuming the goal is for the new structure to be tucked up to the existing as close possible then I would see what kind of new foundation system, if needed, can actually be installed give the proximity of the existing building and its foundation. You could be better off with some sort of post&beam structure that could have separate foundations that can be off set from existing rather than a stick built bearing wall structure that would require a continous foundation.

.

 

[NUTTSGT]

If you framed the three outer walls to support the second floor, it would gain you some more insulation space.

 

[rodm1]

Grate read

 

[cyamaha2007]

The shop already has a 6in concrete floor. I went to talk to the fire department per planning and zoneings request. He said what do you want to do i told him. He handed me a piece of paper and said sketch it. I did and he called zoning said to give me a building permit.I jest got off the phone with him and my restrictions are to properly wire it, fire caulk, have a means of escape, sheet the wall open to the shop in thicker drywall, Install a fire rated door between shop and house. He said there will be 2 inspections and asked me not to be heating with a open oven door when he got there.. as long as i dont well be ok.

 

[little d]

cyamaha, its about 6 to 0ne, 1/2 a dozen the other, as far as framing goes. ether way will work. one thing ya gotta keep in mind though, if your gonna put in windows, or doors, standard framing is 3 1/2", or 5 1/2". if you build a complete wall on the 3 existing walls, it now 7" un sheeted, 7 1/2", sheeted, plus your purlings, this means your gonna have to build custom jams, but its your job, do it how you want.

thank you for posting about the inspectors, lol. I've seen a lot of hand ringing on here about them and it has been my experience that unless your a hack and shouldn't have a hammer in your hand to begin with, or your trying to pull some bull sheet, these guys will bend over back wards to work with ya, they have even helped me outa more then one jam with ideas that i didn't even think of. good luck with your build, and id love to see picks of it as your going along, d.

 

[global72]

The original building a I ran my business out of years ago was on a residential/agricultural property. The current owner took the 40x40 building and converted the right half of it into a mother in-law suite. The window sills are almost 12 inches. The entire project looked pretty simple. However they did not do a second floor. They just installed a suspended ceiling.

 

[cyamaha2007]

here are the plans dealing with hvac at this point.

 

[svtfordlightning]

best bet is to build four walls with deep window boxes. plenty of strength for your second floor. thats the way mine is. you guys are quick to throw the book at this guy, he's just building an office that he happens to sleep in.

 

[cyamaha2007]

i like the way you word it^^

 

[Abbott]

Zoning may not be an issue but the Tax Man certainly will be. If it was me I would be real careful who knew the Residential quarters were in there or I would pay the taxes every year. I opened my mail box a few years ago and found an unexpected tax bill for $44,000. It really sucked and fecked us up real good for a couple or years worth of monster monthly payments.

 

[cyamaha2007]

Im going to declare it as a residence. I figured it would get out and with the old lady on the path to be a lawyer with her dad. There will be alot of in the know people around.

 

[Abbott]

Good idea. It sounds like a fun project and a real handy place to have.

 

[tomroblee]

I realize that these comments go beyond your original question, but your drawings brought up a few thoughts:

Adding plumbing when you have an existing 6" concrete slab is going to be a pain. I'm asuming that a kitchen sink area would back up to the first floor bath to minimize the need for additional drain lines. Have you made provisions for a water heater, washing machine and/or any other plumbing fixtures you might want to add in the future?

The air conditioning will need a condensate drain line. It looks like a fairly long run to the nearest drain pipe.

I can't make out the window sizes on your drawings. Even if you don't have specific codes to deal with now, you might want to consider whether the window sizes on the second floor are sufficient size to be rated as an emergency egress.

I'm assuming that you will use I-joists for the second floor. They are going to be fairly tall to span the 20' width of the first floor. Where you have the stairway, the joists are going to be supported by the inner wall of the stairway (only a 17' span.) Have you considered bumping the width of your apartment another few feet on the end where you have the stairs (so that the stairs would be moved to the other side of the load bearing wall?) If you did this and moved the stairs more to the center, you could make the second bedroom the full width of the apartment and just have a landing at the top of the stairs rather than a hallway. It would also make the first floor bathroom a few steps closer to the second bedroom.

 

[little d]

+1 on what tom said. a copula things i see also, first, like tom said, put the kitchen behind the bath on the first floor, make that wall a 6" plumbing wall. also, id suggest that ya swap the hvac, and closet in the second bedroom, this will allow you to run your drain for the ac out your outside wall, this is also where i would put your water heater, running the drain for the pop off outside also.
tom's right about the stairs. i have a fairly large cap cod, built in the 1800's, the rooms are small as hell because the stair ways are smack dab in the middle of the house. drives me nuts but, not worth the effort to move them, you on the other hand are in the building stage and can put them anywhere. even if you cant move them to the outside of the wall, moving them down(bottom closer to the door between the shop and living room), like tom suggested, will allow you to open up the second bed room.

 

[zeebad1]

We utilized 3 walls of our building, and did things a little differently.

You can't see them very well in the picture, but we put a 2" X 12" on the face of the posts, and another behind it, between the posts. We then blocked under both of them to hold the load.

We used steel Z purlins for floor joists. They're 10" tall, on 24" centers where they span 10', and back over the garage, they are on 16" centers, and span 24'.

For the outside walls, we put up 2" X 4" purlins horizontally, and covered them with 1/2" OSB. This stiffened up the structure. That all got covered with 1/2" sheetrock.

I don't know if I actually needed the metal decking, but for anther $1000.00, I'll never have to worry about it. That got covered with 3/4" T&G plywood.

 

[cyamaha2007]

ok ill clarify some things. All the walls are 2x6 besides the back wall of the kitchen thats 2x10 to give me a place to hide the return air and and do a couple of neat things. I already have the 2x10s and all of the plumbing will be in that wall so i can really insulate those pipes. The floor is supported with floor trusses with a engineered 9x25 opening in them that is right under the hvac room. This makes makes it so there will be no bulkheads in the first floor. The floor trusses are 2x12 also. All of the building plans were checked by a city inspector even tho they dont have to be. The windows are just large enough to be legal egress. Thanks for making my mind jog.

 

[little d]

your welcome, sometimes it good to have someone look over your sholder. been doing this for 30+years now and still have the forest for the trees thing going on some times.