Pole Barn X Bracing

[jcook5003]

Hey Guys-

So from my understanding a pole barn gets a lot of it's lateral strength from poles buried 4' in the ground. I was fine putting the posts in the ground on my run-in shed but for my barn I'm looking for a way to build without ground contact of wood.

I was looking into some of the breackets designed to be placed on a concrete "pier" to elimante the ground contact. My concern is now you've lost your lateral strength, how do you get it back? Cable "X" bracing at the corners?

How have others eliminated ground contact with their posts and how have you all braced your buildings?

 

[mattellis2]

x-braces are a good way to do it. that is how must commercial metal buildings are braced. they'll usually have a panel or two along the long walls, a panel in each end wall, and maybe a couple of panels (i each side of the ridge) in the roof. the also use turnbuckles to pre-tension the rods. they don't do a lot of good if they're loose.

as an alternative, and if the barn is going to be enclosed, you can build a shear wall to take the place of x-bracing. basically a heavy duty stud wall built between on of your sets of posts. it has sheathing on each side, multiple studs at the ends, and a hold down (like a simpson phd) at each end. the shear wall acts as a collector element and transmits the lateral loads to your foundation. the sheathing is typically nailed very securely (like 4-6" o.c.).

quick google shows a typical diagram:

Typical Shear Wall

Eta: you need shear walls in both direction, and you'll need to nail or lag bolt the top plate of the wall to the bottom of the beams that span between posts.

 

[jcook5003]

Everytime I juggle this around, I come back to building a concrete footing with a a concrete "stub" wall and just stick framing the barn. I cant imagine it would cost that much more than pole construction.

I suppose the concrete in the footing is what makes a large difference in cost.

 

[beppington]

I made my pole barn like you're saying: I sunk those metal 4x4 brackets into concrete footers & attached my posts to them. But I added diagonal bracing at the top of each post like this:

The barn may actually sway just a little, depending on how many of these you install (the more, the better), how far down each post you bring them (the further down, the better), how firmly you secure each diagonal to each 4x4, etc.

 

[bp fick]

I just built a small, 18x24 barn. I had tons of tear out lumber, 2x6, 2x4, etc.

I wanted to use it up. I had more than enough for a mini barn of this size and likely enough to have made it 30% larger, had I wished. Every step up requires more sheeting on walls and roof and more steel or shingles, so I am quite fine with the size. This mini barn cost me less than $800. I have not yet poured the floor. That cost will be additional.

I used piers, 8" in diameter to set the barn on. Piers are 2 feet apart, which support the plate just fine. I double plated the bottom of each wall with two PT boards.

I did not do a cost comparison with pole barn style construction.
I am just saying that other construction techniques can work and work well.

BUT.....If you have to purchase all the 2x6 or 2x8 for the walls, I am just not sure you can save much money over pole style. A calculation would give you that answer. Best regards on your project.