Pole barn/shed technical question?

When a pole shed is built how does the exterior siding meet the ground in most cases?
What I mean is that let say I built a pole shed and used a gravel floor. How/where does the gravel meet against the siding, or how is it normally done? Because you wouldnt want a gap where rodents/snow or whatever could just get in. In a normal wood stick framed garage there is a sill plate that the siding can nail to, but a pole shed doesnt have a sill plate.

If I were to take a guess and I built one I would use a treated 2x6 board for the perimeter and screw this into the posts. Then fill the area with gravel and have the steel siding sit on top of the 2x6 perimeter board. Is this correct?

That's essentially how Morton built my pole barn 5 years ago ! The treated 2x6" served as the form for the poured floor ! No rodent problems yet ! The best thing I did was to put in 10 "skylights" which are opaque roof panels to let in indirect light. The bldg is 30 x 60 and faces South, but every bit of light helps in these sheds IMO. Enjoy it ! Craig

Okay.
Now, how does the exterior siding meet the ground? Is it sitting on top of the 2x6? Or is it it nailed to something?

The bottom if often closed with 1/2" pressure-treated plywood buried below grade. That's with pole-barns. New houses with wood foundations use 3/4" pressure-treated plywood.

I kept the siding up about 4" and put a flexible fabric (scrap from a paper mill) into the ground, because I was concerned about frost damage. In N MN we get a lot of frost heaving in unheated buildings and it's hard to design a building that works well. For example the garage door has about 1 1/2 difference from summer to winter where it latches, so I made long latches with slotted holes. One time in late winter the door had so much pressure on it I had a very hard time to get it to unlatch. About the rodents, the mice get in but the weasels eat them so it balances out!

the steel is set on a starter strip and nailed or screwed starter strip is nailed to a 2x6 treated starter plank

Standard practice is to place a 2x6 skirt around the base of the building, then fasten the siding to the skirt, so the siding overlaps the skirt about two inches. Because the grade is fairly steep around the rear of my building, I added a second 2x6 below the first one on the rear half of the building. The concrete floor is normally finished flush with the top of the skirt. I poured my floor before siding the building so it was easier to finish.

So if you dont mind me asking what does a Morton building, 30 x 60 cost? What is the height of the exterior walls?
Post a picture if you can.

The side steel attaches to the face of the treated bottom girt (2 x 8 grade board) just like it does to the rest of the girts. A horizontal bottom trim can be added to close up the rib openings on the steel.

Keep the bottom edge of the side steel higher up on the face of the grade board if you want to match an outside slab"s elevation with an inside slab. This also allows more soil to be pushed back to the grade board to allow for better drainage away from he building.

If you are planning on a dirt floor, I would put treated wood skirt around the bottom. If the metal makes contact with the ground it will rust out. If you are planning on a concrete floor I would make a lip on the edge of the concrete 1" high and 1 1/2" wide for the tin to sit on. This will channel any water that runs down the wall out.

In my part of New York, building code requires the poles to go below the frost line. That's 4 feet here and 5 feet in the Adirondacks.

Many polebarns are built a foot or so above grade with built-up gravel. If so, the bottom is often closed with steel since the gravel doesn't retain a lot of moisture, so the steel doesn't rust very fast.

For pole-barns on, or below grade - a pressure-treated 2X6 is often run between poles below grade. Then pressure-treated wood skirt boards are put in and then backfilled. 2' below grade usually keeps the critters out, but I go deeper.

Here's a pole-barn I built recently that is below grade on one side. I wanted if rodent proof and insulated. So in this case, 1/2" PT plywood on the outside, 3/4" PT plywood on the inside, and 2" of foam insulation sandwiched inbetween.

<a href="http://s104.photobucket.com/albums/m162/jdemaris/?action=view&amp;current=Indianlake1.jpg" target="_blank"> </a>

A 2 story pole barn/shed. Cool. I have never seen one like that before.

I helped my cousin build 2 pole barns on his place and the 2 bottom boards were 2x6 TG composite (plastic). Cost more to do this but they wont rot out and no worry about ground contact. The one barn were the cows are in he used Perma-Colume posts and used the composite boards were the cows were so no wood rot to worry about. When we built our 40x60 pole barn its all Perma-Colume posts and 2x6 TG bottom boards and SS screws into the concrete posts. Just something to think about. Bandit

Instead of 1 2x like the factory built buildings use I used 3 of the 2x in a toung and grove pattern and fastened the steel to top half of top 2x and all I could get in the 2x was a 2x6 that measures 5" altho I would have prefered a 2x8 or 2x10.

on all of mine ,i simply ran a 2x6 around bottom about four inches from ground.metal screws to this and runs down to slightly below ground.The wood doesnt touch ground except for posts. Its fairly dry here though so metal being in contact with ground is not a real problem.I have some thats right at 50 years old thats still good on building that dont hold cattle. I have seen guys take a good heavy piece of metal up about the first two foot then use lightweight metal above that to save costs. Price on tin these days is ridiculous.

Sky lights are nice but I always avoided them. Neighbor on the other hand built his first tow barns with them. Some years later he built another couple of barns and they had none. Guess what had to be replaced on the initial buildings?

It's best to put at least 2 T&G boards around the parameter. If it was mine, I would do 3. First it keeps the tin up off the ground and out of the grass so it doesn't rust away. Second, if you don't put landscape stones around it and just let the grass or weeds grow next to the tin, it is pretty easy to bend the tin up when you try to mow next to it. With 3 boards, your mower can skim along the board with no damage to the tin.

If I'm building the building from scratch I set the treated poles on 8-10' (max) centers. I set the bottom (treated) horizontal board half a dozen or so inches above the dirt....the bottom of it.

When I set the wall height, I set it so that I can use a standard dimension of tin with the 6" spacing.

Then I come back with pieces of tin about a foot long and close the hole using screws; the ones the building suppliers use self tapping, for wood with the 1/4" hex head. Then when the bottom gets rusty and all I can easily replace it....but some of my barns are 30 years old and I haven't had to do that.

Get yourself an electric tin cutter. Harbor Freight has them for a reasonable price...they are worth their weight in gold.

Mark

used three 2x6 pt t&g for bottom boards
then a starterr strip with rat guard for the siding to stop against

you dont in most cases want the tin sitting on top of a board,water that runs off side of tin would simply run inside the building. If you did this you may consider running another wider board under it next to posts to make sort of a step to turn water outside. This is how my buildings with concrete floors are done,with tin sitting on top of concrete. just fyi,on my lean to's that are meant to shelter cattle,i simply ran a 2x6 around the bottom about six inches off the ground and ran tin down to the bottom of it. cattle tend to build up manure around edges and it rusts out metal faster. This gap not only helps the metal but it also gives a little ventilation. Cattle dont mind,because they simply are looking for a windbreak most of the time. On buildings like a chicken house and such i run tin at least a foot underground to discourage animals from digging in. Best way may be to try to look around buildings in your area and see how they are built and kind of consider its intended use. Probably wouldnt want tin off the ground for instance in a area with lots of blowing snow. where a horse stall needs a solid board wall up ( of untreated lumber) a few feet to help with kicking and such. Workshops and such that are concrete floored need tin sitting atop slab here to keep pack rats and critters out, etc. Some places building codes and such will dictate what you do( and every building must be built to local codes regardless of its location!the only difference believe it or not is its not required to be inspected). One thing you may want to bear in mind also while planning is to consider doors and how they will hang. A lean to here built for equipment for example needs to have doors,or be fenced off from cattle because they will climb all over it and do more damage than if it were left outside. Prevailing wind direction in your area makes a difference here also. 40-50 mile an hour winds are fairly common and they can blow the doors right in on one. bottom line ,what you are trying to build,and your area /conditions are whats important.

Have you ever seen the panels that is used to build small building, They are leftover pieces left over from the Stanley door builders, Around east Ky they are used to go just below the gravel line and up the first 24 inches and the meet the metal, Works great.

You might want to take a look at all the components that are made by manufactures.
Fabral Installation instructions

and ABC

I have seen where they use short posts in ground and then box it top,inside,outside. They then put a stick frame from then on up. Hard to describe.

We put up a basic 30x30x11 Midwest shack this year.

Ten foot centers, dropped purlins, no insulation, thinner steel, 10' O.H. door, no inside finish, 5" concrete inside & front pad.
Cost a little under $17/sq. ft. for our use.

Take away the concrete areas, and depending on what doors & windows you would want, you could get down to around $13 or so?

Some pics.
Here's the page on Midwest's site with the different plans they offer. May be of some help? Lots of prints to look at.
prints

The cross members allow you to secure the siding run up and down. If you are concerned about weak corners you could reenforce them by triming the corners with a 2" uprights.

Which Harbor Freight cutter? Nibbler? Shear like scissors? Or shear that cuts a small strip that rolls up in front of the shear? Thanks.

That is very informative, thanks.

Most of the pole buildings around here are built that way, with one or two,maybe more, tongue and groove treated 2X6's on the bottom. When dad's Morton building was built he requested only one 2X6 on the bottom. Now he wishes he would have requested two or three. The cattle shed on my place has nine 2X6's, then wooden siding from there on up.Jim

The one that rolls it up.

Thanks! HF has a 25% off (one item) sale on New Year's Day, might just use the coupon for that.

A late post, maybe you'll never see it, but wanted to tell you thanks in case you do look at old posts. Bought a used US-made shear and it's really smooth cutting tin. Your advice was right on the mark.

Perfect. This give me all the answers.