Above 1200 Sq/FT Hay barn conversion to auto shop - 30x40 pole barn project

[Bob2112]

Hi all! The wife and I just bought our future retirement home in TN while we are still young enough to enjoy it. The house is nice and all, but what I was really interested in was the 30x40 pole barn. Now that I have it I'd like to get started on turning it into a great automotive workshop so I can finish up all the projects I have sitting in Denver.

Here's some initial questions I have that I'd love to hear some input on.

1) The floor is asphalt. I've read that it is best to rip the asphalt out before putting in concrete. However, I only wanted concrete as a base for epoxy. But I'm wondering if epoxy can be put over the asphalt directly?
1a) If so, will it self level if put on sufficiently thick? Will it be strong enough for jack stands, engine lifts big heavy welders and stuff like that?
2b) If not, can I just have the concrete guys leave the surface somewhat unfinished so it will be nice and rough for the epoxy to grab hold of?

2) The trusses are ten feet apart. That seems like a long span to try and support insulation and a ceiling with. Can I just simply add some single beam joists, or do they need to be connect to the ceiling? And what is an acceptable span for a metal or aluminum ceiling with fiberglass bat? 5', 2.5'?

3) And finally, less of question, and more of a request, if anyone knows any solid garage or garage floor folks in the area (Columbia, TN, about 45-60 mins south of Nashville) please let me know! I plan to do plenty of work myself, but if it always nice to have someone to call if I just don't feel like messing with something.

Thanks!

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Another trip to the TN house and on this trip we got the concrete floor done. Day 1 was tear out of the asphalt and chalking the level lines around the walls, day 2 was the real work. They brought in a load and a half of concrete. The floor was on a pretty decent slope, so while it is six inches thick on the one side, because of the slope it is more like 8 or 9 inches thick on the other. Also have the wire reinforcement in there. The concrete is 3500 psi.

I had them leave it unsealed since I plan to put epoxy over it once it has cured for a couple months. I had to head back to Denver the next day, but it was hard not to just hang out in the garage looking at the floor. I guess I'm easily entertained?

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Nice floor!! Good call on putting down concrete.

 

[pmiranda]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Looking good!
On the ceiling question... you might be able to find an online calculator that will tell you how much load those trusses can carry. My guess is you'll need to toss up some more to carry the ceiling... unless you use lightweight aluminum or steel and some lightweight blown insulation. Or maybe one of the all-in-one insulated metal panel products if it's strong enough to span 10 feet... but I bet you'll need extra trusses just to hold them up without bowing.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

For the ceiling I was thinking of using vinyl or aluminum soffit material. They are both pretty lightweight and with some batt insulation on that I would think it will be light enough for the trusses to handle. I saw somewhere else where someone with 10' OC trusses was going just put a crossbeam in the middle of the trusses (running parallel to the trusses) and run a wire support up to a roof perlin. Perhaps I could do that with 2x6's braced to reach across the 30' span, and then two wire hangers up to perlins at 10' from each wall.

After that, I'd be running 2x4 or even 2x2 (less weight) strips perpendicular to the trusses and crossbeams to attached the soffit material too. I don't intend any storage up there, so the soffit material and insulation is all the trusses have to support.

Alternatively, I could build some trusses myself to mimic the ones in place now and add those to make 5' OC trusses. I suspect that might be more than I need though.

 

[ishiboo]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

I think your best option is going to be pole barn steel for the ceiling. You can use a lower-cost "utility panel" in white. It won't span 10' I don't believe, but if you split it as you plan with a 2x2 and then tie that to the roof purlins with wire, you'll be in good shape.

You could try it though first. The ribs make it pretty solid (it's basically a very light version of q deck) so it might do just fine over that distance with just a little fiberglass on top. You'll be in bad shape if you ever step onto it though

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Wow, over a year has gone by already!? Never enough time to do the fun stuff....

Anyway, I've made some limited progress, and I'm hoping to get a fair bit done over the holidays since we did our big family thing on Thanksgiving this year. Here's some posts to get caught up.

Last winter and spring I was too busy working on our old house to get much done other than research and dreaming. I did find some people who have spanned 10' with a metal panel that has deeper ribs than normal, PBR it is called. It is rated for 6' spans, but I found several folks that have said they used it on 10' spans with no problem, even with things hanging from it like fans and lights etc. So I bought some of that, and I'll give it a try. I did some testing just putting it on some on end 2x6's on the floor and it seems fine, let's hope it is when I put it up. If not, I'll split the span as planned before.

10/12/17 - Poured the concrete outside the shop for a concrete pad. This is to be my overflow parking. I'll store my tractor and car hauler here. I can also fit in two cars, or even four cars if they are little (like my Fiero). The pad is 42' x 21'.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

11/12/2017 - Here's some of the supplies filling up the shop. I found a place to get 5' wide batts of insulation so I don't have to deal with the little rolls. That was pretty cool. I got 6" thick for the walls and 9.5" thick for the ceiling. Also visible is the steel panels for the ceiling and walls. The ceiling is the 26 gauge PBR panels and the walls are 29 gauge 'normal' panels (3/4" ribs). There's some wood and polyiso insulation laying around too, but it isn't all visible. I've also got two ceiling fans, a pile of LED lights, plastic for the vapor barrier, breakers and various sizes of wire so I can run my lines for the HVAC, welder, air compressor and lift before I put the wall panels up.

Also, the same night as this picture, I managed to get a tiny bit of work done. The 'ends' of the building didn't have anywhere for me to attached the J trim for the ceiling panels, so I added some 2x6 'beams' across the end to utilize. This also helps hold up the insulation.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

11/14/2017 - Although I still need to run wire, I wanted to test out some sections just to make sure my plans for the insulation would be okay. So I got two sections done. The first one I did like Bullnerd and had little cross pieces to 'hang' the insulation up top, but once I put it in, there was enough friction that the insulation didn't need it, so for the next two, I just pulled them up and they were fine. Once the metal panel is up, I can't see it going anywhere.

First section:

Next section: I'll be filling the joint between the two batts before I put up the plastic.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Last post for a bit - just after Thanksgiving, the carport people came out and put that up. Eagle carports, these guys had this 18'x41' car port up in about 90 minutes. Pretty neat watching them - they know what they are about for sure.

12/1/2017:

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

12/22/17 - 12/24/17
Two more sections of insulation and cross beam studs put up. You can't really see it in this picture, but I also finished the runs of 10/3 wire for both the heat pump and future lift. Probably only need 10/2, but I don't want to ever have to run wire again, and you never know when I might want a temporary 120volt take off outdoors, so figured it couldn't hurt to have the extra white wire there. 10 years from now appliances might all be using 240/120 voltage. Also, I installed a shut off on the outside for the HVAC guys to tap into when they come to put up the mini split. More pictures of that coming up below.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

12/25/17 - Christmas!
First plastic sheet up. The wall is 11' tall, and my plastic is 20' wide, so I did a 20x15 piece of plastic so I'd have overlap past one section of ceiling panels (since they are 3' wide). I thought I would have a harder time with the plastic than I did, but I just draped it over me and started stapling across the bottom and then moved up one cross stud at a time and then eventually stapled up to the bottom of the trusses. Nice thing about the 20' width is two pieces can cover the whole length of the shop.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

1/5/18
The real fun - putting up the J trim and the first metal panel! This was pretty easy actually. At first I was drilling with the screws, but then decided it was faster to just mark where the holes would go, drill them all and then put the screws in. Sounds tedious, but it actually goes pretty fast.

Over the next few days I continued putting up more panels, then put up the next sheet of plastic (which finished this wall) and then continued with the panels.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

1/28/18
A few days before this picture, the mini split unit was installed. It's the small unit in the middle of the wall. Its about 33k BTU heating and cooling, and it is a nice simple unit, no duct work. I had added some extra wood where it would be mounted just to ensure the HVAC guys didn't have any trouble. You can also see the wall looking almost finished. It isn't visible in this pic, but there is 3' still unfinished to the left.

The outside part of the mini split unit - other than the power shut off, the HVAC guys did all the rest.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

A quick word about outlets: I had done some reading about how various people trimmed their outlets on metal panel walls and I saw a lot of approaches. I personally decide to spend the extra few minutes relocating the outlets so that they would be in between the larger ribs on the metal. By doing that, a normal metal trim plate sits flush with the wall. I can add a little foam strip to the back of these if I want to seal it up even more, but this wasn't hard and I'd recommend that approach to anyone who is reading this to get ideas for their own garage.

I had plenty of blocks of scrap wood and they were perfect for screwing into the main supports to shift the location of the outlets by a few inches. In the picture below you can see how they look. I used a nibbler to cut the holes out of the metal panel. I think they look pretty good. The blank plate is the cover for the lift wires. Some day when I put the lift in, I'll put a socket in there.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

1/28/2018
Last thing I got to work on before another trip away from home was the brush seals on one of the sliding doors. It isn't visible in this picture, but I actually put a 3" wide strip of polyiso on the top edge of the door just to help reduce the size of the gap so the wind hitting the brushes would be blunted a bit. These are four inch brushes and they fully cover the gap at the top. The rest of the door will be filled in with polyiso, which was about the highest R value per inch material I could find. It will be 1.5" thick which should be around R9-10. Not great, but better than nothing. There is some air gap between the two sheets so maybe that adds something too.

I'd like to eventually get some flat sheet metal to put over the whole door and paint it to match the walls. Speaking of, I did pick up some matching paint for the knee braces so they will not be so noticeable. Also, you may have noticed the cutouts in the metal panels for the knee braces. I will go back and add some metal over those gaps later. The plastic and insulation are intact behind the panels, so that is more of final cosmetic step than a functional need.

Anyway - here's the top brush seal of one of the doors. The doors are both 12' wide by 10' tall.

Thanks all for now!

 

[Done That]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Looking good! Appreciate the posts and and pictures, I'm still thinking through how I want to do my pole building and these threads are super helpfull.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Thanks, Done. What do you have and what is the plan so far?

Actually, I just read through your thread - your building looks great!

 

[Done That]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Thanks Bob. I'm mostly trying to figure out the inside and insulation path I take. I like the lean-to that we did, and might try to figure out a way to keep the area above it for storage. May have to just spray foam the roof and then do an approach like yours for the walls.

Come June the second daughter will be out of Nursing school and I'll have some $ back in my pocket to fund materials for the inside work...

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Yes, I really like the metal walls for the interior. They look good, will be easy to clean, and although it is a touch more work than drywall when you first put them up, there is no taping, sanding or painting to do - once they are up you are done!

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

2/18/18 - Finished putting the rigid polyiso insulation into the northeastern sliding door. I left a couple little niches for the latches, but stuffed some fiberglass insulation in there to block any air leaks through there. Also started working on the southwest door as well.

2/19/18 - Finished the polyiso on the southwest door.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

The door insulation and foil tape stops the airflow and provides a decent amount of insulation for a door. But it didn't look great, and I was worried that the foil tape may, over time, fall off, so I wanted more of a mechanical method to hold the insulation in place. I looked at flat sheet metal but it was quite expensive. So, I did some wandering at Lowe's and saw white hardboard that was only like $12 per 4' x 8' sheet. I figured I could use that and as a bonus, I found out you can write on that stuff just like dry erase boards. In fact, most of the reviews of the stuff are people buying it to make cheap whiteboards. I figure that could be great for making lists, drawing out sketches, and if we do work for hire, we can even explain things to customers on there. So, I got the truck and picked up 8 sheets. If I had got 10 sheets, I could have made the seams more symmetrical, but that just felt wasteful. I'll probably touch up the seams and screws with some white paint so they blend in more.

2/23/18 - Finished the whiteboard covering of the the northeast door.

2/25/18 - Finished the whiteboard covering of the southwest door.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

With the door totally finished, I was finally able to get back to the walls! I'll need to get some lights up soon, because the existing old 8' florescents are dying off. I've rotated them around best I can, but the end is near for them. Thankfully the white covering on the doors helps brighten things up. I'm hoping to get this next section of wall up so I can then put up some ceiling panels and maybe get those far enough out that I can put up a couple lights. If not, I'll just put a couple up (I have twelve 4' double LED lights) temporarily and then take them down when I need to put the panels up.

The next section was a bit wider at 11' so I opened up the single roll of 6' wide insulation and used a strip of that and a strip of 5'. The 5' was the end of a roll and it was conveniently exactly the length I needed. Always nice to avoid scrap pieces.

2/25/18 - Another panel covered. Had to get ready to head out to Denver again, so these boards will hold it up until I get back and put my cross beams up, that's another 121 sq ft of wall area covered!

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

With the weather getting a bit warmer, I have gotten into a routine of going out and working on the shop for about an hour or two each night. Slow, but steady progress. The heat pump helps take the chill off on the cold nights too. Anyway - back to the progress:

3/11/2018 - Plastic and cross beams up on the east corner. With no lower beam up top, I just put screwed some scrap 2x4 pieces to the beam that the j-channel for the ceiling is mounted to. For the wall doors it was easier to not put up an j-channel for the wall panels and just put them as flush as possible to the bottom of the ceiling j-channel. The plastic wraps around so I'm not worried about bugs and air coming in there anyway.

East corner plastic

3/12/208 - Put up the first wall panel on the east corner.

3/13/18 - Put up two more on the east corner. I'll stop there since I need to put up another section of j-channel for the ceiling before continuing. Moving on to the south corner.

East corner with 3 panels up

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

3/25/18 - Two panels up on the south corner. The 2nd panel needed to be cut around the door opening. Even for this large cut, the nibbler was fine. I find I can make much more precise cuts with the nibbler than the shears. The downside if the mess the nibbler makes, but I find putting the garbage can under the cut as I go helps catch a lot of it.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Had to go back to Denver for a week, but got back to it as soon as I came home. I was excited to get started on my next bit - putting up ceiling panels! I've been looking forward to this for a while because 1) it helps keep the heat in better, and 2) I'll be able to start putting up lights and insulation which further clears the floor.

4/7/2018 - The first course was a challenge since the knee braces need to be worked around. It took me about 5 or 6 tries, but I finally got the first panel in place. Not visible in the picture is some wood I added on the other side of where the knee brace and the truss are fastened which allowed me to screw the panel in a bit. For future courses, I'll need to use a dead-man to hold up one end of the panel while the next is overlapped and then both screwed into place.

First ceiling panel up!

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

4/7/2018 (cont) - I managed to get a second panel up. Only took a couple lifts to get that one right.

4/9/2018 - Two more panels complete the first row.

4/11/2018 - Next up was putting up the first roll of 5' wide insulation. The panels are 3' wide, but with the space over the walls, there is only about a foot of overhang. This was a workout for sure, but the rest will be easier since the ceiling won't be so low, which gets in the way of unfolding the batts.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

4/13/2018 - Next up I added more plastic to the trusses. I've left it partly down so that I have room to use the drywall lift for hoisting up the insulation batts. As I get more rows of ceiling panels up I'll staple the plastic up more.

I next put up a couple more panels. These were super easy since no cutting was needed. One lift, screw it and done. Then put up the dead-man, put the next sheet on the drywall lift and repeat.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

4/14 & 4/15/2018 - I put up six more panels, thus completing three rows, and then put up two new lights. The lights have a connector on the end for installing them in a row, so these lights didn't need any wires hooked up to them yet. The center truss will have four 4' lights all connected together centered, whereas the two end trussed will have a ceiling fan in the center, with two separated pairs of 4' lights. It's starting to look like a real shop now and with the plastic hanging down the heater has been able to keep it quite warm in there - I haven't even had to wear a jacket!

4/16/108 - Last night before leaving town and I put up another row of 5' wide insulation. So I've now installed one third of the ceiling insulation (400 sq ft of 1200) and a bit less than that of the ceiling panels (12 panels of 40).

That's all for now!

 

[nomadskidoo]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

I really like the Tin Wall,,,I just did my 40'X64' X 17' wall inside with Tin,3,400 sf in 60days,could NOT find a contractor to come out and do it.Really hard to find even Big Name Buildings/Brands,, to show up,kinda' a Industry standard,(I had the 1 st contractor walk off after 90 days and incomplete to rebuild "ALL" of there work/attempt,&2nd guy had to rebuild complete building,,they took 17 other Customers in Iowa over $204,000)& costing more than there bid,basic cover your ase(CYA),long story,a signed bid,2 "Bonds of coverage"& still Ia AG couldn't do anything to protect customers.I just want GJ to let guys/gals know about no justice for Contracting,there's good Contractors,out there, don't forget!Get 3 bids&3 referances!

 

[raco232]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Looks awesome! Sounds like you are like me......you are by yourself working on the shop. I just had a 30x50x13 shop put up & am in the planning stage of the interior. Keep posting, as I am sure there are a lot of followers.

 

[Jeepster04]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Looking good!

Is the ceiling metal spanning 10'? Maybe I missed you talking about that?

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Hi Raco and Jeepster! Thanks for following along!

Raco - feel free to ask question as you start to work on things - tons of help on this board and I've read through quite a bit of it already.

Jeepster - Yes, 10' spans. It is a long span, but after finding some others that had managed to span it without issue, I gave it a try. So far so good, no sagging. That being said, I certainly won't be putting anything more than the insulation up there. Also, I use 26 gauge PBR panels. The PBR panels have deeper ribs for more rigidity. They are typically qualified to span 6' spans as exterior roofing, however in the interior application, with no wind loads etc, they seem to be fine for the 10' span. The normal panels probably wouldn't be able to do it though unless you didn't put any insulation on them, such as spraying the underside of the roof and then putting up panels for the ceiling completely unloaded.

 

[Homebody]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

10' ?
Damn, and I thought I was pushing it with a 4' span on my tin ceiling!
Looks great though - nice shop!

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Thanks Homebody! I thought it might be to long too, and I thought about splitting the span with some 2x4's and joist hangers, but I figured the less weight the better, so I gave it try with just the full 10' open span and it seems just fine.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

Another business trip means time to update the thread. I've been sticking to my 2 hours a night quota pretty well the past three weeks.

4/27/18 - Put some scrap pieces of wood on the beams at each end of the shop. This gives me something to screw small the wall panel pieces into that go above the doors. Above the windows I used a solid 2x6 all the way across since those panels will be bigger and I didn't have another use the 2x6 anyway, so I figured it would get it out of the way.

I also put some 'framing' above the windows and doors so that the insulation would be contained and the metal wall panels would have something to screw into. I might still need some shimming material to keep the wall flush, but it's pretty close.

4/29/18 - A couple night later I managed to get some more insulation up above the windows and doors. I had to work on this before I put up my next 10' section of J-Channel for the ceiling panels along with the plastic that goes under those channels. Also, not seen in this picture, but I did put a 2x4 cross beam about midway up to both hold in that insulation as well as provide something to screw the wall panel into.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

5/2/18 - Spent this night and most of the next getting the next course of plastic up. Since I'm putting up the insulation a bit at a time, I can only put up the plastic a bit at a time. So I put it up, and leave it hanging down then staple up three feet at a time as I put the panels up. The plastic gets in the way a bit, but it has the benefit of helping to keep the air conditioned air where it belongs rather than going up in the attic and blowing out the roof.

5/3/18 - More plastic work and then put one section of J-Channel on each end.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

5/4/18 - Put up another row of ceiling panels - that's four rows done, six to go.

5/5/18 - I think people who don't do big projects like this miss out the excitement of little things. My big exciting accomplishment this night, was that I got to finish putting up and TURNING ON some of my lights. These are four foot LED strip light that have connectors on the side so you just have to wire up one, then the next one can just be attached. So these are pairs of those, so 8 feet total length each. It was so nice having more than just one little 4' light working. Starting to feel like a real workplace!

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

5/6 - 5/7/18 - Spent both of these night putting up wire runs for the two ceiling fans and the lights that will be on the center truss. Previously there we lights on the #1 and #3 truss, but not the center one.

5/8/18 - Put up another row of ceiling panels. That's 5 out of 10 rows done. For anyone wanting to do this themselves, here you can see my personal one person technique, which is using a drywall lift to hold one panel in place, while a dead man holds the previous panel. I also use a needle nose visegrip to hold the panels in alignment. Then, once the seam between the dead-man and lift is screwed in, I lower the dead-man (it is on a floor jack) then I slide the dry wall lift forward to the edge of the panel that is now half-installed, put the dead man up on that panel to hold it up and then lower the drywall lift and load up the next panel. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Bob2112]

Re: 30x40 Pole Barn Project

5/9/18 - Put up ceiling fan #1. These are cheap, non-lighting fans I got off Amazon. I would prefer a shorter drop bar, but the fans are still 9'7" above the ground, so I think it will be fine. If ever it isn't fine, I'll just replace them with something a bit more flush mount.

5/10/18 - First up tonight was relocating my panels since they were in the way of my continued progress. My wife had helped me a few days before move the wall panels, but I did the 20 ceiling panels myself. I thought putting the metal panels under one of the cars was an ingenious way of saving floor space, but then again it doesn't take much for me to impress myself.

With that task done, I put up ceiling fan #2. You can see both of them in this picture below.