I am about to embark on a Pole barn raising project for myself. It will be 30'x30'x10' high side walls.
I am looking at dropping the poles into the ground first, then at a later time, I will add a concrete floor.
This is where I need some advice, the ground where I am planning the location of the pole barn is not quite level and is composed of sandy soil, (Florida area), Should I use a box-blade to level the area, drop my posts into the ground then add some kind of fill to bring it back up to my planned floor height, less the thickness of the concrete flooring?
Or should I just leave the compacted soil as is, dropped my posts into the ground, prepare the base with plastic and rock for a sub-base for the concrete? Using the rock to level the floor area. I would prefer doing it this way to reduce costs. It's not that much out of level, perhaps 6-8" over the 30 foot distance.
The pole barn will be divided in half, on half to be used as a woodworking area and the other side as a metal/car working area.
I haven't put a floor in our pole barn even though I keep thinking about it...
I would be concerned about making sure you have the soil filled and compacted evenly before you put the gravel and concrete in to prevent future settling which might crack the floor. A bit of time now filling and compacting before you pour the floor might be a good investment, hopefully others who have done this will add their comments.
You can go ahead and build the barn now and do your floor filling/compacting/concreting later as well.
Sounds like a nice sized barn. We did the same thing with a 24x40 barn a few years ago. When we built the barn, I didn't do anything to the ground first, although it was pretty level to start. In fact, we had grass in the barn for a while [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]
About six months later we added some gravel, then about a year later I had a buddy pour a 4 inch floor. I didn't do a lot of prep work, compacting, etc. and probably should have. The floor has been in for about 3 years now and has a couple of cracks in it, but no big deal for what I use it for. If I was going to use it for working on cars or heavy equipment, I would have spent more money and poured the floor a little deeper, 6 or 8 inches. I use the barn mainly for storage so a couple of cracks don't bother me a whole lot.
One thing that does bother me is the 20x20 pad we poured in the front of the barn. The ground was VERY wet when we poured it and there was definately not a good solid base to pour on. I should have called off that project until it dryed up and I had time to add gravel and better prepared. But the floor in the barn was done, and I had no way to get all my stuff back in the barn with the door blocked, so I went ahead and poured it. It has a few cracks, they don't look bad, and are not spreading apart. Maybe because I used reinforced concrete and added some old pipe and angle when we poured it. But what bugs me is the way it moves up and down as the weather changes. In the Winter the whole pad where it meets the floor of the barn (right where the sliding door is) moves up 2 to 3 inches! It actually goes up enough to hit the bottom of the door making it a pain to open during the cold months. Fortunately I don't have to get in that way very often during those months.
Sorry for the long story... guess my advice is to take your time and prep everything before you pour [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]
Oh, make sure you have good ventilation while you are running any equipment inside the barn while prepping the floor. I almost passed out spreading gravel with a Bobcat in our barn. The fumes were really bad, but I didn't notice until it was almost too late [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]
Hey zbadone, one more thing. Now would be a great time to consider addnig a floor drain if needed. I put one close to the front of my barn and it has come in quite handy for spraying mowers off and stuff like that. Just a thought [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]
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