We will probably have a pond dug to supply the dirt/clay for our house site preparation so we figured we would just make the pond big enough to supply the clay for our driveway. I will give the geotextile some more thought and consideration before we make a move though.
Are you scraping the topsoil off your driveway area before laying down the cloth and roadbed? 600'x10' would sure give you a lot of dirt to spread somewhere else where it might be needed after your house and barn are built...
Chris
Chris, it's usually recommended to scrape down to get rid of vegetation that might later decompose, but for our particular roadbed it's not really needed. I scalped the roadway with the mower and it has also had some compaction from our own traffic in and out of the place, so it was not like it had a lot of grass on it in the first place.
I would suggest that for your future road even with the clay the cloth may be an economical addition to ensure stability.
Nick
Hey CD, What is the spacing and slope (rise/run) of the trusses? My guess was 4-5ft spacing and about 3/12 or 2/12.
Looks nice!
I haven't look at your profile to see where you are at, but it is definately not texas hill country! Looks like crop land.
Thanks
Gary
Gary, you're right on the money - it's a 3/12 roof slope, trusses at 5' spacing.
The only hills around here are the ones the ants make - we are just northwest of Houston, between Katy and Brookshire.
Nick
Here's the finished barn. Still working on prep for the slab that will go inside.
Nick
Man, and I thought ND was flat! I ran my computer enhancement algorythm on your posted pix and I can see traces of tomorrow coming and yesterday leaving out in the distance in your exterrnal photos.
Deja vu... I have a 70X35 red shop with white trim. Rollup doors in the middle of both ends (12X14 to handle a semi) and an electric chain hoist on a jib crane. No wood in the construction and 12 inch slab (prev owner did dozer maint).
Have another building in the making. It is 36X48 with 12 ft walls and 12:12 pitch with 18 inch eave overhangs. Will have three 10 ft wide rollups in one end. Two 8 ft tall and a 14 ft in the center (legal highway height is 13-6). One of the 48 ft walls will have expanders on the trusses to give me a 48X21ft shed roof down that one side. That will be 2:12 pitch. Slab size is roughly 57X48. I am planning for a 6 in slab with some trenching (waffle pattern) with rebar in it to get more strength for the total concrete used. You can get the strength of a 12-14 in steel reinforced slab by pouring a 4-6 inch cap on a waffle pattern with rebar added near the bottom of the trenches.
I'm compensating for my age and other liabilities by hiring a contractor to help put the building up. He has a high lift with a boom pole, so we will bolt the trusses together on the ground and lift them with the machine. Hopefully, getting them to sit down on the J-bolts in the concrete won't be a tedious nightmare. Hope to get the concrete poured within a couple weeks. Building should go up quickly. I've never done standing seam metal roof but I'm told it goes quick on a simple gable roof. 12:12 pitch almost requires mountaineering experience.
Note to any prospective metal roof installers/customers:
If you have exposed fasteners, you will eventually have leaks. Be careful when torqueing the fasteners. Tighten until the rubber gasket just barely starts to expand and no more. As the torque varies from screw to screw, it is not possible to set a screw gun to stop properly. It is a tedious time consuming task to do it right but a good job will avoid leaks a lot longer than a rush job (like most contractors do). If you try to get fancy and use silicone caulk, be advised it lubricates the rubber washers and makes it much easier for them to ooze out from under the head of the screw. The 50 yr caulk is not a bad insurance IF and only IF the screws are carefully torqued and the gaskets are not distorted.
Patrick
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
You sound like you know a lot about metal roofing. A pole barn I bough has one that is terribly leaky and looks like it has been for quite a while. It was built with the fasteners placed in the valleys of the metal instead of at the raised portions. As a result, I really get some water through the holes. What do you suggest I do at this point?
Gary, Except for assemblel it yourself metal sheds, my first metal roofs were on buildings that came with my acreage. We had some fairly serious leaks in the roof over the 35X70 ft shop bld and in the well house (same materials). My wife and I spent the better part of two days on top of the shop (GREAT VIEW as the roof ridge is over 20 ft up) with "duelling calk guns" and a box of calk tubes. As it is difficult to determine the source of a leak since the water gets in and runs a ways before dripping, we calked every fastener on the roof, replacing a few ( a couple just weren't there anymore).
There is a small (10X12??) office with a much lower height on one side of the bld. It leaked really bad. There was some foam plastic material that looked to be some kind of weather proofing. The shop is over 25 yrs old (I became friends with the local chap who drew this bld up and supervised the building). The weather proofing stuff was pretty used up. We sealed the ridge of the office with expanding inslulating foam and silicone caulked everywhere that we thought water could get in.
The builder for my current home has done several metal buildings and several standing seam metal roofs as well as the exposed fastener type. We had a nice long talk.
Given a choice, if leaks really matter, don't use exposed fasteners, it is a false savings. Of course in a barn, maybe a few small leaks wouldn't matter but not where you store anything that can be damaged by water or say a house.
Sorry to hear that your roof was assembled bass ackwards. Du-uh, what were they thinking (maybe the problem is that they weren't, thinking that is). I'd be tempted to get a supply of fasteners (cause you may lose a few following my next suggestion. Back off the fasteners one by one and put some high quality caulk under the heads, tighten them down and then surround the head with caulk, connecting the caulk on top to that which oozed out from under the tightened fastener. This makes a water tight seal. You need to be sure the area where the caulk is applied to the roof is clean and dry to get optimum adhesion.
This is what I did and it has worked good so far (2 yrs) I used 50 yr GE silicone so I should have another 48 yrs to go.
Best of luck, whatever you decide to do,
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Chevdog - Nice job, Nice Barn. I'm new to CBN but hope to build me a barn soon. Bet the people here are willing to help. I hope so , I'm positive i will need some guidance!!
Nice to meet y'all - Look forward to talking and exchanging ideas.
Merry Christmas to ALL. dull pain in TENN
<font color="blue">"Back off the fasteners one by one"</font color>
If only it were that simple. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] The roof panels are nailed rather than screwed down so backing them off a little isn't an option. Even pulling nails to replace some siding panels is a challenge where the adjacent good panels overlap (and underlap) the damaged piece.
The only thing I can do on those is try to depress the ridge enough to wedge something like a thin piece of plastic with a 'V' cut into it under the nail head. Then I can use a small block and pry bar to raise the nail head far enough to allow me to use a larger block and larger pry bar to remove each nail so as to neither damage nor mar the panels which will remain.
I'm sure open to suggestions as to any quicker or better ways to go about this as the way I described is going to be cumbersome at best. Please let me know if you have any suggestions. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote