Snow, wind and static loads all have to be accounted for. If you buy a building it will come with engineering drawings and it should be designed for your snow, wind and static loads. Some clown from down near Anaconda, MT tried to sell me a steel building a few years ago. I kept asking for the drawings but he wouldn't provide them. Finally he showed up with the building on a truck and I told him that I need to see the drawings. Turns out it was designed for Salmon, ID with a snow loading of around 15lb/sq.ft. At my house the snow load is closer to 60lb/sq.ft. He wanted money to cover his time and fuel. Nope, not happening!!
Bear with me on this. I have seen & visited with 2 customer's/buildings that are 2 years old. No complaints. I talked with the business owner, he said all the right things. Does 5.5” concrete with re-mesh & footing, himself, properly cut. Bends his own siding & roofing metal. Pole barn style buildings are engineered for area. Says the steel trusses are over engineered for the area. Uses closed cell spray foam (R33-37), doesn’t like the vinyl back batts, but will use if you insist. Several times, the owner stated his preferred method of building because he doesn’t have any problems. I’m thinking he’s not having problems because owners are not having problems. I’ll get more info when I visit a job site Monday. Not cheap tho.
Investigate.... "Morton Buildings".
I second the Morton Building suggestion; my wood shop is a 960sqft Morton Building built in 2016 and is fantastic, took two weeks from arrival to finish.
I have no idea what sort of building you are considering but if its an engineered building it should be fine. Here is a picture of my engineered clear span shop going up. Came with three copies of teh engineering calcs - one for me and two for the building permits department. The purlins and girts are all 14ga. In addition to gauge a major factor is cross section shape and dimensions. Z purlins are stronger than C purlins. A larger 14 ga purlin may be structurally stronger than a smaller 12 ga purlin.
Retirement gift to myself but to get approval from my lovely wife of 50 years I had to partition and finish a piece of one end bay for her "craft shop" That's her private entrance and picture window on the front left corner.....Now that's a building. Very cool!
Is that 40ft x 60ft or 30ft x 50ft or something else? I like the size and what a great shop you have there.
Thank you - and in 2006 it was incredibly inexpensive.
That's awesome! Pretty much a dream set up for many of us here. How do you heat it? I'd love a heated space for all my welding projects that get put on hold over the cold winter months. Once I get some sheds built this year I'm going to look at a heated metal working area.
I have a ceiling mounted 150K BTU LP unit hearer hanging in the middle of bays 2 and 3. It will keep that area at a very comfortable 70 degrees. It will also chew through $1K of LP in a month. Consequently I only run it when the shop is in use. Insulation is good enough to keep it above freezing overnight and most mornings its around 50 when I turn on the lights
