Open faced tractor shed project

[random]

I think that perhaps even a thin steel panel will help with shear resistance, but agreed, not to the degree that OSB would.

 

[RCW]

Gosh - - Ken's and Old Paint's projects had me hankering for a build.

Both are taking on some great projects. My hat's off to you.

Ken, if you do sleep there, I won't tell anybody...

Our lot next door has a 30'x140' slab where a 3-story chicken coop once stood. Place was an egg farm for years.

Slab is in pretty good shape 50 years later. I park Moline and implements there. Good headstart.

This morning was in Lowe's looking for 4/4 x 6" pine.

At $6/bdft, I passed, and it tempered my enthusiasm....I didn't dare go one more aisle to the framing lumber....

 

[River19]

Gosh - - Ken's and Old Paint's projects had me hankering for a build.

Both are taking on some great projects. My hat's off to you.

Ken, if you do sleep there, I won't tell anybody...

Our lot next door has a 30'x140' slab where a 3-story chicken coop once stood. Place was an egg farm for years.

Slab is in pretty good shape 50 years later. I park Moline and implements there. Good headstart.

This morning was in Lowe's looking for 4/4 x 6" pine.

At $6/bdft, I passed, and it tempered my enthusiasm....I didn't dare go one more aisle to the framing lumber....

View attachment 60330

Saw a 6x6 8' PT post at $50 and 12' at $75.....yeah, no.

I had to build a 17x13 deck last summer for a hot tub (first world problem) and built it with 2x10 PT 12" OC with Trex and I'm very glad that was LAST summer. Lumber was hard to get then, but the prices had just started to creep up. Today what cost me $3500 or so in materials might be $7000......insanity.

 

[Magicman]

Ken, The building should be designed to carry any normal/expected load, tension, or stress without relying on the steel roofing or sides.

I am having to suppress my feeling of jealously.

 

[ken erickson]

Thanks everyone for the thoughts on the steel!
Hopefully the builder will take delivery of the steel this coming work week. If things go well I should have a usable building by the first to second week in June.

My building is very simple in design and construction and not even close compared to the great Shop/shed/garage that Old_Paint is putting up! That being said , its a huge upgrade for me to be able to keep the two Kubota's dry, in the shade, and level along with some of my implements .

 

[Magicman]

its a huge upgrade for me to be able to keep the two Kubota's dry, in the shade, and level along with some of my implements .

Well it is looking mighty fine to me. I will again be on a remote sawmilling job next week so maybe it will be completed when I get back home.

 

[ken erickson]

I think I jinxed myself by stating that if all goes well I should have a building by the first or second week of June. LOL
The builder left a message this morning that the steel will not be delivered until June 18th or there's about.
But in the big picture its a very minor hiccup especially when I think how blessed I am just to be able to have a piece of land such as I do that allows me to enjoy my passions etc. Habitat creation, wildlife and EVEN Kubota tractors! LOL

 

[Magicman]

It seems that "very minor hiccups" are the norm and to be expected. Heck I am seeing rain in next week's forecast and I may not finish that sawmilling job either.

 

[bird dogger]

But in the big picture its a very minor hiccup especially when I think how blessed I am just to be able to have a piece of land such as I do that allows me to enjoy my passions etc. Habitat creation, wildlife and EVEN Kubota tractors! LOL

Agreed! It just doesn't get any better than that, does it?

 

[Old_Paint]

If you were talking about the steel gussets that I see connecting the truss members, no, they don't offer any structural integrity or load capacity. Their primary purpose is to hold the corners of the triangles in place and translate vertical loads into horizontal loads. Think about how a triangle works. If you lay it on the longest side, and put downward force on the peak, the middle of the side that's on the ground has very little or even NO downward force on it. It will have PLENTY of tensile force on it, though. This is why a splice in the bottom chord of a truss is of little or no concern until you get extremely heavy snow loads. Then the solution is to make the splice longer. Truss strength also lets you use smaller lumber (less weight and cost) as well as half as many required as there would be for regular rafters. That's how trusses work, so that there aren't any center columns or posts required under a large area.

Try this little experiment with popsicle sticks. Take two, glue one end together in a V shape, which is standard rafter configuration. Turn it upside down and put a little pressure on the point. It'll break easy. Now, glue another member to it to make an A frame. A bit harder to break. Add a "W" in the small triangle in the A, and now it's even harder to break. The more places you distribute the load and change it from compression to tensile loading, the stronger the truss gets. And it doesn't take many pieces to make a VERY strong truss. Mine span 24 feet, and I'm not the least bit concerned about any loading on the top. That is NOT to say that I would consider hanging any significant load from the bottom truss chords, though, especially toward the middle or at the splice.

 

[ken erickson]

If you were talking about the steel gussets that I see connecting the truss members, no, they don't offer any structural integrity or load capacity. Their primary purpose is to hold the corners of the triangles in place and translate vertical loads into horizontal loads. Think about how a triangle works. If you lay it on the longest side, and put downward force on the peak, the middle of the side that's on the ground has very little or even NO downward force on it. It will have PLENTY of tensile force on it, though. This is why a splice in the bottom chord of a truss is of little or no concern until you get extremely heavy snow loads. Then the solution is to make the splice longer. Truss strength also lets you use smaller lumber (less weight and cost) as well as half as many required as there would be for regular rafters. That's how trusses work, so that there aren't any center columns or posts required under a large area.

Try this little experiment with popsicle sticks. Take two, glue one end together in a V shape, which is standard rafter configuration. Turn it upside down and put a little pressure on the point. It'll break easy. Now, glue another member to it to make an A frame. A bit harder to break. Add a "W" in the small triangle in the A, and now it's even harder to break. The more places you distribute the load and change it from compression to tensile loading, the stronger the truss gets. And it doesn't take many pieces to make a VERY strong truss. Mine span 24 feet, and I'm not the least bit concerned about any loading on the top. That is NOT to say that I would consider hanging any significant load from the bottom truss chords, though, especially toward the middle or at the splice.

Thanks for the info on the trusses Old_Paint! What I was wondering about though was the steel used for the roof and sides, if that offered any structural integrity to a pole type construction such as mine.

As a side note to the trusses the builder did offer to tell me that the trusses he used for my building are rated for hanging a ceiling should I ever decide to do that. . Not sure of the specifics as I have not inquired or have I seen the engineering specs for them.

 

[bird dogger]

Thanks for the info on the trusses Old_Paint! What I was wondering about though was the steel used for the roof and sides, if that offered any structural integrity to a pole type construction such as mine.

Ken, I posted this a while back on someone else's building project:

" One of my close neighbors built a nice pole barn in the 40x60 ft range. Sheeted with steel and future plans of pouring a concrete floor down the road. For the last two years he couldn't figure out why the dirt was settling so much on one side of his shed....even the end walls. No steel was buckling, yet the gap along the ground grew by up to 6 inches along the side. I set up my surveyors level (Wild Heerbrugg) and we shot levels under each rafter right next to each post. Mystery solved! One side of his building was lifting out of the ground almost perfectly and without causing any steel to buckle. The overhead door still functioned but was starting to rub in the tracks on the low side. We plan to dig down with the backhoe in one spot to see just what kind of a footing and how deep it actually is. He'll need to fix this issue before he can think about pouring his floor. He sure wished he would've built off of a nice floating slab to begin with. We'll find out if his builders scrimped on his post footings or not. "

It took us a while to believe what the level readings were telling us! Yup, one side was lifting out of the ground perfectly even along the whole long side. Even the end wall lifted proportionally towards the solid side. And with no signs of the steel siding buckling anywhere. When we examined his large OH door we could see it was shifting to the low side of the opening and rubbing in the tracks quite heavily on that side. This all came to light when the neighbor asked me to shoot some elevations of the inside floor to calculate how much fill he needed to close up his "gaps" along the side wall. When his existing floor turned out to be quite level as is.....we went problem solving for the mystery. We were amazed that the steel held everything straight without any cracking/buckling as the one side of the building was heaving up out of the ground!

We're going to excavate alongside one of his posts to see the depth and the footings used by his contractor. Not sure at this point how he's going to try to correct the problem. If it wouldn't continue to heave upwards we could correct his door opening as is. He could then tell everybody that commented on the crooked door that it's just an optical illusion!
David

 

[Old_Paint]

Oh, yeah, definitely it will add rigidity on the sides, and the roof panels will keep the top structure squared. Each piece has its own contribution, and the net strength is cumulative. No different than plywood or OSB sheathing. Pretty puzzling how one corner can heave the way described, but frost heave is peculiar. We don’t have any significant frost heave issues down here in the sunny south. I elected a full slab and attached the building to it. Leaves a few more options down the road. I ran rebar around the perimeter in a 12x12 footer and 6” remesh over the whole surface. Pretty sure it ain’t going anywhere. I put TapCon anchors every other stud space and within 12 inches of any splice, as well as nailed a blocker across the splice This made a requirement that I had to bore a 1” hole through the blocker to put the TapCons in, but there’s only 5 of them. I ran a double plate beam on the sides and back wall, and triple on the front wall to help with the loading over the doors. I should pass inspection pretty easily.

 

[Magicman]

Any update or pictures?

 

[ken erickson]

Any update or pictures?

Unfortunately no. My builder was hoping for the steel delivery to happen this Friday (18th).
I was down today to the land and did do some brush cutting of weeds that have popped up around the build. We are experiencing a drought in central Wisconsin. Even my natives that have deep roots are showing signs of stress.

 

[Magicman]

Yup, it seems that everything is backed up. I ordered sawmill blades yesterday with a 2 month expected delivery time.

Before this "mess" I would get them within 4 days.

 

[ken erickson]

Turns out the steel was delivered on the 18th. I popped down today to do some trail mowing etc and found the side metal is up with the roof and trim pieces to go.
The colors I choose are cream/tan sides with slate green semi gloss roof and trim.
Good chance the builder will be done with his part by the end of this week.

 

[Magicman]

Oh wow, that is now looking house-y.

 

[mcmxi]

Yeah, very nice shed. Looking forward to seeing it completed and a photo or two with the tractor in there. Wish I had a nice shed like that.

 

[ken erickson]

Just returned from my land. Appears the builder has completed his part. It looks , as best I can tell, that he did a good job.
I hope to get my tractors parked tomorrow inside for the time being until I have 6 yards of what I know as 1/2 minus limestone delivered. I have a bit of leveling inside before I spread the stone but happy that I came within 2 inches of being level using stakes, line and a string level.