Pole Barn 40X64X16

[Mike Heidrick]

Signed a contract yesterday with S&L Builders out of Indiana for a 40X64X16 Pole Barn with a 10X24 porch. Build date August 18, 2014.

Plan to install Pex for raidant floor heat. Concrete slab 5" thick. Also doing 1.5" closed cell foam under the pad.

Built on Laminated posts in ground. Will have two 14X14 doors, 3 ped doors, 4 double hung windows, wainscoting, 12" overhangs all around, and double bubble on walls and ceiling and closure strips on walls. Should outlast me.

Time for some grading/site prep.

Pretty excited.

[Marty Tippin]

Sounds great! The 16' height will be excellent if you want to park an RV or camper.

Planning to finish with insulation and drywall? That bubble insulation stuff won't do much for you in the middle of winter or the middle of summer. Been there, done that... ;-)

Insulated garage doors too? Worth the extra expense now if you ever plan to finish the interior and heat it.

[Mike Heidrick]

Yes insulated garage doors day one and insulation and finish inside as I can afford it but before too much is moved in.

[Russ Webb]

I'd suggest using some foam around the perimeter of the slab so you have an unbroken thermal break between the slab and exterior. Put down the foam, cover with vapor barrier, surround with foam. I think you'll be glad you did. I used 4" of foam under my slab and R36 ICFs with an additional 4" of foam on the exterior of my foundation wall (surrounding the slab. I live in a colder climate but my shop is less than half as big as yours will be. I used R42 SIPS for walls and R68 SIPS for ceiling insulation. With 16' height you'll need something to keep the heat in too.

We're all envious of the room you'll have!

[Todd Burch]

Congrats!! Will it be all woodworking or other activities too?

[Shane Copps]

Just a quick thought/observation. I was told by three different contactors when I did my shop, that I needed at least 6 inches to put pex in for radiant heat and 7-8 inches if I was going to drive on it. I would hate to see your floor be messed up from the start. I am in South Eastern MT so I wouldn't think our weather is much different (to cause the difference)

Thanks

[William C Rogers]

I'm in southern Indiana and I am just finishing my pole barn heating system. 5" concrete floor for pex was what I used and none of the pex installers recommended more. If you moved dirt you need to make sure it is well compacted before pouring the concrete. I did a 2 foot deep x 12 inches wide footer and put in 2" styrofoam as a break. My installer highly recommended a specific thermal blanket that I let him use (May not have been best choice on my part). Of course the concrete will need to be pumped in and I made them hand trowel the expansion slots. Didn't want a chance of nipping the pex with a concrete saw. I did put the bubble insulation in the ceiling one layer. I am installing R13 fiberglass over that. I put R19 in the walls, but filled all of the correlated holes with the can foam. I have 7/16 OSB on the walls. I am doing a drop ceiling (12 foot). I got the panels free from a demolition company redoing a old Borders building. My previous shop I had the outlets installed in the walls (no foam in the correlations) and there was always cold air blowing in through these. I am having my outlets external (wires only behind walls and external conduit when necessary).
If I was to build again I would install 2" foam instead of the insulation blanket, I would spray foam the walls and ceiling 2" and then blow insulation for the remainder.
My previous shop was overhead propane heated. I could heat it up quickly, but had cold feet as there was no insulation in the foundation ( I didn't build that one). My biggest problem was air leaks and not insulation value ( electrical outlets, switches, doors, etc.). Of course better insulation value is always a positive and wish I had more. I am just now getting everything hooked up, so it will be this winter to see how this works.

[Mike Heidrick]

Congrats!! Will it be all woodworking or other activities too?

I have metalworking tools and woodworking tools and CNC versions of both. Its all shop. Think my own personal MakerSpace/TechShop.

[Don Jarvie]

Consider a separate metal shop. Wood and metal don't mix well.

[Raymond Fries]

Congrats on your new soon to be shop! Sounds awesome and I would be excited too.

[Brian Tymchak]

Sweeeet! Green with envy! Congrats!!

[Mike Heidrick]

On Monday I took down my existing meterbase and overhead weatherhead and conduit and lines to main house panel. I then installed a 400amp meterbase and two200amp disconnects immediately off of it. Then routed new wire into main pane in house. Also installed a second ground rod and new ground wires. The second disconnect will be where I connect the new pole barn too after it is built.

Also got some good deals on romex, L6-30 recepticals, Liftmaster jackshaft garage door openers, and some HID commercial bay lights. Also ordered the URD services entrance wire that will be in a trench to the new shop.

Looking to get site prep done next week.

[Larry Edgerton]

On Monday I took down my existing meterbase and overhead weatherhead and conduit and lines to main house panel. I then installed a 400amp meterbase and two200amp disconnects immediately off of it. Then routed new wire into main pane in house. Also installed a second ground rod and new ground wires. The second disconnect will be where I connect the new pole barn too after it is built.
.

That's the way I did my new shop/house as well. One meter, one bill, simple.

On the infloor heat, I always do a variable spacing. Closer loops on the outside and gradually getting farther apart as they get closer to the center. Cold comes from the outside, not the center. It gives a much more even heat.

Recently a homeowner had a system designed by a company in a warmer climate, and against my recommendations, in writing, he installed it as they speced. We tore it out and put it in my way when it would not get the house to 50 degrees mid winter. $100K mistake. So, I am a big fan of overkill on infloor systems, as there is no going back.

That will a nice size shop. My new shop is 36 x 50, a bit small but was there when I bought the property. My old shop was 140 x 56, and that was too big to heat and maintain once things slowed down.

How far are you from Valpo? I get down there to see my daughter/grandson once in a while.

Larry

[Mike Heidrick]

Larry THANK YOU for the advise. Man I need as much as I can get. I am in Bloomington IL which is about 2 hours from Chicago fairly middle IL. You are welsome ANY time to visit. (Same with any members.

The shop will be 3X the space I have now so I am excited and will have room for a loft in the future. Right now it is all I can do to afford this shell of a project.

I am concerned how the heck they will pour this floor with all the lines ran to a far corner where the power is coming in. Not sure how you do a large radiant heat floor poor and reach everywhere with all the pex lines down. I will be talking to my concrete guy about that tomorrow I guess.

Need to some up with some DIY pex uncoiler, a romex uncoiler, and a large cable spool unroller for the main line from the shop to house - that spool is very large. Plan to use the 3pt on the tractor to help with that.

Larry, do you do this work for a living??

[Larry Edgerton]

Mike

I do not do heating specifically, I am a general contractor. A lot of the homes I work on have infloor heat, and after the first one I had done failed to heat the house I did a lot of research so as not to have to deal with that embarrassment again. Other than the house I have just finished that is forced air [Money] ,my last three homes had infloor heat systems that I designed myself.

Some things I have learned.

If you are in a wet area with high ground water, provide a gravel base that will drain under your insulation. Water will carry away heat faster than dry dirt. Providing a dry base breaks that mechanical connection.

Don't be talked into an instant heater type boiler or one of those high tech water heaters. The best and most economical results I have seem are with conventional high efficiency boilers using a valve that mixes return water with boiler water to come up with the right temp. I like two smaller boilers on a big house rather than one large just for the redundancy factor. It gets very cold up here and most of the houses I build are vacation homes so I like the idea of a second line of defense. In the case of a shop your size with a boiler on each end it will cut down on the length of runs, I like to see no more than 250' on a run. Because of the shear size of you're shop this may not be possible but something to keep in mind. Water can only carry so much heat and after 250 feet the temp is getting down too low. I would however overlap at least one run from each boiler to keep the other end warm in case one of the boilers fails, especially in the area where there is water such as a bathroom.

A good base for the floor is critical, severe shifting of the concrete can sever lines, so if you have loamy soil have it scraped out and use a good base such as crushed limestone. One of the failures I saw was a half mile long concrete driveway that was not given a proper base, and it shifted in several spots from frost severing the lines. We get about 4' of frost, and I did not consider the driveway environmentally responsible, but it did fail because of poor preparation. Insist on steel reinforcement in the concrete. Contractors will try to sell you on the fiber concrete as being just as good, but it is not. Its easier for them. If there is a cold joint, poured in more than one day, make sure the joint is pinned well with rerod. It is easy for them to do, they just have to drill holes in the bulkhead that stops the pour and insert rod through the holes a foot each way.

Do some reading on oxygen permeation. If the tubing you use does not have a good oxygen barrier, a form of scum can start to develop inside your tubing and eventually clog your system. I have used Stadler [spelling?] tubing in my own homes and insist on it in the homes where I have a say for my customers. My oldest system is over 22 years old and my ex wife says its working just fine.........

I recently moved into my new house and I already miss the infloor heat. At the old house I had to walk outside to know what the weather is like as the huge mass of the floor kept the temp constant, even in the summer. As well as my new house is insulated, extreme to be sure, I have a lot of windows and can feel the weather changes. I may have to buy slippers!

Gotta go work on my greenhouse..........

Larry