Mezzanine Questions

[REPO]

Looking at building a pole building this spring. (30x40) We want to put up a mezzanine across the back, and possibly one day turn that into a little appartment for guests. My question is if anyone has some pictures they could share of something like this to give me some ideas? I want it simple, but funcional.

Also wondering about wall height. Can I get away with 16' walls and still have enough head room on both levels? Or maybe I have to step up to 18' walls? What have others done?

Thanks in advance!

 

[cyamaha2007]

How deep do you want the mezzanine? If 16ft or less you can "SPAN A BAY" they will remove a truss and beef up the trusses on either side. The roof purlins will be beefed up to a vertical 2x10. This gives you a heavly vaulted ceiling over your mezzanine. You will lose 1ft from the roof deck.If you have 6:12 roof pitch with a 16ft side wall your ceiling height in the spanned bay will be 22.5 in the center.

 

[Rixter58]

Be a little more specific as to what you want. My shop is close to the same size with a loft across the back.

 

[REPO]

Sorry guys. The plan I think is to have it the full width across the back (30') and about 10' feet deep. It doesn't need to be huge, just a bathroom and a little bedroom area really. I checked on the room in trusses, but where I live they are well over double the cost of regular ones. Going higher is way cheaper. Also I don't really want a big long string of stairs leading out into the shop, and considered putting something in the corner that leads up into the area?

 

[Rixter58]

Piece of cake. Mine is 33' wide with an 8' loft all the way across. You don't get a full 8' ceiling on either level but it works out just fine. I don't have a ton of pics in my phone and the ones I do have aren't terribly good, but will share if you like.

 

[Rixter58]

View of the outside, just so you can compare size.
Crappy view of the loft across the rear
Beginnings of the office in the loft.

 

[Rixter58]

Detail of how I supported loft
Under loft

Another under loft

Looking down from loft

 

[Rixter58]

Sorry about the double, I can't seem to fix it.

 

[REPO]

Hey awesome, that is kind of what I was envisioning, but framed up all the wy across. I don't want my stairs like that though, I would prefer them to be under the mezzanine and coming up into the room, just to save shop floor space. My biggest concern is headroom on each level with 16' walls.

I considered putting things like a drill press, grinder, sand blaster etc under there as they wouldn't need the height of the main area of the shop.

Anyone else have a better setup? Any tricks, or neat setups that I am overlooking?

 

[Rixter58]

You either lose the space upstairs or downstairs. My stairs are hinged although they spend 90% of their time down

 

[cyamaha2007]

What i explained earlier was not a room in the trusses. It removes a truss so you have a higher ceiling height above your mezzanine. Its called "spanning a bay". I had my farms kit built with this in mind. It only added $600 to our 40x60 polebarn. A regular building will have truss bay spacing of 8ft. When ordering your building specify a 12-16ft truss bay at the rear gable wall. All other truss bay spacing can be std. If im not making myself clear pm me and ill try to explain it better.

 

[larry_g]

Check out my build below. Designed in the Mezz and added poles in the building to hold the upper floor and eliminate the truss in that area to allow for the door. In my last shop I did similar but had a L shaped stairs that came into the up stairs and I prefer the outside stair in the new shop as it hides the compressor under, and does not take room from the machine shop or the upstairs room. YMMV

lg
no neat sig line

lg
no neat sig line

 

[REPO]

Ok, I understand now what you mean. It doesn't look like that is an option either as due to our high snow loads, my trusses are to be every 2 feet!

 

[Sureshot]

I used 2x4" .250 steel tubing for my roof. I put my motorcycles and snowmobiles on it. It is decked with 3/4 ply and I used self tapping screws to hold 1x4" strapping and drywalled the office in the bottom. 16' is plenty of headroom. Top of my wall is 8" from the floor with 7'6" ceiling in the office.