help with loft size.

[COPO]

I am planning a 30x60 or 40x60 pole barn depending on the size of loft I can build in it. 12 or 14 eve height, 4/12 pitch. I will be using steel trusses that are 18" in height. On one end will either be a 30x30 apartment in the 30x60 or a 20x40 in the 40x60. Looking for 9ft ceiling in lower. I am looking at using floor joists for a free span, they are about 12" or so depending if they are 20 or 30 ft span. I am open to suggestions!! Question I have is what size loft can I have with above info or do I need to give more info?Wall will be studded in the loft with storage to the sides. And what will ceiling height be in loft? I am just learning about these things before I commit to buying anything. Hopefully this isn't to confusing!


Andy

 

[larry_g]

You can look at my build below for ideas. Do you expect the apartment to be only the loft area or two story.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[COPO]

No. Apartment will be in the lower. Just trying to figure the room size for the loft....standing room.

 

[joshgn]

see my post here... http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4485077&postcount=9

bottom is 9ft wall height...

building is 40x60x16, 4/12 pitch

Here's more pics, as I'm still working on it....

 

[bczygan]

What will loft be used for?

That will determine floor structure and depth.

Then decide on the needed minimum ceiling height at the eaves, for the loft.

Add the depth of the roof structure.

That will tell you the total side wall height.

For a 20' span, looking at the TJI span tables a 11 7/8" deep 360 series TJI will span 22'11" at L/480 with 40#LL and 10#DL, when spaced 12"o.c.

For a 30' span, the 16" deep 560 series spans 32'8" with the same spacing and criteria.

Using the numbers you posted, take a 14' side wall, minus 18" truss, minus 9' ceiling, minus 1' loft floor equals 2'6" from top of loft floor to bottom of truss at the eave. If you use the 20' for the gable end, the headroom under the peak will be just over 6'. For the 30' it would be 7' with 2' at the eave. Just usable for misc. storage with not too much stand up room. Not worth the expense of the loft floor in my opinion. I would want stand up height in most of the loft. So I would make the side wall 16' to 18' to get a minimum of 4' to 6' at the eave, with either 8' to 10' under the peak for the 20' and 9' to 11' for the 30'.

What are the maximum building heights for your zoning?

These numbers would range from just under 18' to 23'.

 

[COPO]

It would be used for a spare bedroom if needed. No zoning in the country, located in the middle of 50 acres.
I work on cars and this is new to me. That above helped a little.

 

[COPO]

I have decided on 40x60. It's in the budget. This is the floor plan I designed on a iPad. Had to take a pic of it due to the way the free app worked. As for the loft, all I need is a 20x15 room. I can lower the ceiling down to 8ft but wanted 9ft to make the rooms feel bigger. Is it possible to have standing room with 14ft eve in the loft? 8FT maybe?

 

[fastjohnny]

I have decided on 40x60. It's in the budget. This is the floor plan I designed on a iPad. Had to take a pic of it due to the way the free app worked. As for the loft, all I need is a 20x15 room. I can lower the ceiling down to 8ft but wanted 9ft to make the rooms feel bigger. Is it possible to have standing room with 14ft eve in the loft? 8FT maybe? [/IMG]

If you are an elf...

 

[bczygan]

Some questions about your drawing.

Are those vertical lines the ceiling joists for the mezzanine?

Do you intend for a mezzanine that covers the entire 2nd floor?

 

[dfiler2]

4/12 pitch is 4" of rise for every 12" of run so a 30' wide building, assuming the peak is in the center would be 60" in the middle. 40' would give you 80". Why not go with a steeper pitch. A 30' wide building with a 6/12 would give you 90" in the center or the 40' wide would give you 120. That would be from the top of the wall to the bottom edge of the rafter at the peak.

 

[andersen24]

I have decided on 40x60. It's in the budget. This is the floor plan I designed on a iPad. Had to take a pic of it due to the way the free app worked. As for the loft, all I need is a 20x15 room. I can lower the ceiling down to 8ft but wanted 9ft to make the rooms feel bigger. Is it possible to have standing room with 14ft eve in the loft? 8FT maybe?

Not to change the sbject, but what app is that for the iPad?

 

[COPO]

Some questions about your drawing.

Are those vertical lines the ceiling joists for the mezzanine?

Do you intend for a mezzanine that covers the entire 2nd floor?

That is just a floor pattern when a room is formed. Can be changed 45 and 90 degrees.

Yes I was planning on lighter decking on the sides of the room for storage.

 

[COPO]

Not to change the sbject, but what app is that for the iPad?

Its called House Design.

 

[bczygan]

That is just a floor pattern when a room is formed. Can be changed 45 and 90 degrees.

Yes I was planning on lighter decking on the sides of the room for storage.

I don't know what you mean by this.

What portion of the plan has the mezzanine over it?

 

[COPO]

I don't know what you mean by this.

What portion of the plan has the mezzanine over it?

I can understand why you don't know what I mean, been in this situation dealing with ppl in the car world. Thank you for your patience!

40x60x??
20x40x8/9 ceiling on one end leaving a 40x40 garage/shop

End view with 40ft truss span, sry for having to take a pic like this. Room above is labeled

3d view of said room, walls will be studded . Stairs will be located in shop area. Storage to side of upstair room, access from shop area.

 

[rburke65]

How much more for 16' side walls. With the 40x60'foot print it would not look funny and you will love the extra 2 foot with the loft. Get a price check.

 

[bczygan]

OK,
Now I've got it.

One more question. You only want storage over this 20x40 area? You don't want to use storage trusses throughout, and have storage above the entire space? I was just in a 32x48 building that was about the same height, and the entire truss system was storage trusses. Gave a lot of storage space up there.

If you have 14' at the eaves to play with, then take it and use it.

To minimize the height you lose, there are 2 ways. One is the storage truss. The loads you can reasonable expect to carry are limited compared to using joists. Joists will carry more load for the money. And the way you have laid out the living space, a wall at the entry and a beam from that wall to the outside wall, could cut the span of your joists in half, allowing shallower joists, and giving you more space above, along with more load carrying capability. And a steeper roof pitch would also help, as mentioned above. I sent you a PM. Call me if you want to talk about the options.

Bill

 

[COPO]

As I learn a lil more here, seems a taller eve will be required. I'll do some research on trusses. I got a estimate with steel trusses.

The center room upstairs will be a spare bedroom. About 4 times a yr I have a get together, moderate drinking going on but no one leaves. Usually have about 4 ppl that stay over. Have a couple bedroom suites I'd like to keep up there.

I sorta understand about the beam. Pictures help me out understanding when I'm unsure of how things work.

 

[nolimits76]

If you'd like to use an actual CAD program, you can download a FREE version of DraftSight for either Mac or the PC platform. If you know anything about drafting, the guys that make DS also make Solid Works, a top notch 3D program.

Anyhow, it's comparable to AutoCAD, but w/o the steep price tag and/or educational requirements.

http://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/free-download/

Also, here is a website where you can enter your rough data and it gives you some quick & dirty info on the fly. It's not taking into account ceiling joist thicknesses, roof truss thicknesses, etc but rather giving you raw dimensions.

Scroll towards the bottom and calculate the ridge height. Be sure to subtract your wall height it will show you the "raw" height of the attic at the ridge point. So if it shows 13' ridge height w/ an 8' wall then subtract 13-8 = 5' is the actual attic height (again, w/o consideration of lumber thicknesses, etc).

http://www.pole-barn.info/roof-pitch.html

My previous house I built I had to take all this stuff into consideration. I built what they call a 1.5 story around here. It's basically a single level home w/ a high pitched roof that allows extra rooms upstairs. In my case, I added about 800sf game room & bath (above) to my 2300sf home (below). But my house had 10:12 and 8:12 pitches on it. Like your initial sketches, I used 5' pony walls and followed the roof trusses up to about 9' ceiling height and then I flattened it out. Around here, that's called a "french vault". The advantage was it still allowed some room to run air ducts for heating & cooling, plus some can lights, as well as adding some architectural interest.

FYI, the 5' pony wall was a minimum requirement for my area to be considered living space. I've seen some people start lower at 3' or 4' but that wouldn't work in my case. You might check in your area too if that is a concern (might be for future resale value).

To me, it looks like you will need to extend overall height your exterior walls (but hold down your interior ceiling height. Or run the wall heights you want and increase the pitch of the roof. Or possibly some combination of the two to achieve what is aesthetically pleasing to you, and works best for your budget.

 

[Corrsa]

This one is the most correct, calculating with the rise and run of the roof
http://myrooff.com/roof-pitch-calculator/

 

[pmiranda]

If you'd like to use an actual CAD program, you can download a FREE version of DraftSight for either Mac or the PC platform. If you know anything about drafting, the guys that make DS also make Solid Works, a top notch 3D program.

Coming from having used AutoCAD in college it's great, but do you know of a library of building components and common garage items that I can use in it?
Right now I'm mostly using visio to do layouts since I have all the walls, furniture, etc. as stencils or whatever they call them. Visio can then export .dwg to draftsight and also sketchup.