Pole Barn Insulation Question

[Kakridge]

New member here. I have a 30x50 pole barn that will hold my tractor and also our workout room. We have a heat exchanger already and are planning to do a/c as well. The heat is provided by a wood boiler so it won’t cost much.

I’m struggling with how to handle the insulation. We are going to spray foam the place for $3000 and I’m not sure if I should frame the walls before hand or just do girts and osb on the outside of the posts. Our electric work has already been done. I appreciate the help everyone. I’m new to doing work like framing.

 

[b-boy]

If you're going to add any cabinets on the walls, I'd frame them out. I'd probably go 24" on center.
I just finished mine. It was time consuming, but not at all difficult. The hard part was creating a framework across the top and bottom of the walls so I could securely attach the 2x4s.

 

[Kakridge]

If you're going to add any cabinets on the walls, I'd frame them out. I'd probably go 24" on center.
I just finished mine. It was time consuming, but not at all difficult. The hard part was creating a framework across the top and bottom of the walls so I could securely attach the 2x4s.

Is it possible to do this after it’s been foamed? The beams are 5.5” plus the 1.5” of the girts and we are doing 3” of open cell spray foam.

 

[Firebrick43]

If your foam ends up being 3" and uneven it may be be a pain to frame after the fact. I personally don't like the idea of framing out, waste of materials. Plan ahead and where your going to hang cabinets put a full bookshelf girt the width of the post and glue screw it to the outside and inside girt to create a big I beam. It will have less deflection than any 2x4 stud wall and a looks the use of blanket insulation the width of the post spacing. This reduces (almost eliminates) thermal bridging and has higher r value. Also much faster construction and less lumber.

Also have you considered putting 1.5" xps between the girts? Right now it would be pretry easy. A little foam at the edges and it will be sealed as well as spray foam. If you want 3" just screw a second layer of full sheets of 1.5" xps to the first layer/inside of outside girts. Also spray foam should not be applied to the backside of metal and the metals warrenty will be void and make panel replacement extremely difficult. Tyvek or similar should have been applied to spray the foam on before the metal was applied.

 

[Kakridge]

I apologize for being a neophyte on a lot of this stuff. I know with the foam you are basically just creating an envelope vs trying to achieve a high r-value. I hadn’t considered voiding a warranty or panel replacement when looking at the foam.

Creating the “I” would be horizontally correct? I’ll take a look at doing the hard foam.

 

[b-boy]

I did the hard foam board. I screwed them into the girts. There's a lot of intricate cuts you need to make. After that I filled all gaps with spray foam. I have R11 fiberglass batts on top of that. My walls are R21.

It was a time consuming, but not that bad.

 

[Kakridge]

That looks really good b-boy. Do you feel it does a good job holding temperature? This is somewhere we will be for a few hours everyday. My wife and I have jobs that require us to stay physically fit and our workout room is part of the barn.

What did you use on the ceiling as this is where we would see the majority of loss?

Did you just use the basic spray foam or did you purchase the better gun and foam to fill the gaps?

 

[b-boy]

That looks really good b-boy. Do you feel it does a good job holding temperature? This is somewhere we will be for a few hours everyday. My wife and I have jobs that require us to stay physically fit and our workout room is part of the barn.

What did you use on the ceiling as this is where we would see the majority of loss?

Did you just use the basic spray foam or did you purchase the better gun and foam to fill the gaps?

I have R38 faced Batts on the ceiling. I'm still working on finishing that. I will say that the walls made a huge difference this summer. Prior to insulating them it was tough to work in there. Now it's not too bad. It hasn't seen a winter yet.

I spent a lot of time plugging gaps with spray foam. I want zero air infiltration. I used the Pro gun to do a lot of the work. I started with the spray cans, but switched to the gun. Its much easier to control the foam.

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