Pre Fab Steel Building...For 8N

I posted this over on the tool forum and I got some good responses...but I wanted to check here too with you guys, since most of you know what your are talking about.

I am looking at putting up a new shop/storage building and I am looking at the pre-fab steel buildings...specifically the one by Miracle-Span, the M-Series

Link

They are very cost effective per sq ft and they claim to be very easy to put up. I have talked with the company and they say that they have never had one colapse due to snow...I am up in the Syracuse NY area so this is important...All metal building so I don't think a lot of snow could stay on it.

I don't know of anyone who has one and I am looking to see what others know about them.

Seems like they could get hot but there are vents for them and for light there are fiberglass pannels.

Another thing I like is that they seem to be a pretty secure building...this is for some farm/recreational land I have but only get to a few times a week....yes there will be 8N's in it

Any thoughts or experiences are appreciated.

Any thoughts on the quality of Morton barns?

I don't like trusses too much. There's a lot of space lost in a truss. I'd rather have the use of a second floor, even if the footprint is smaller then the floor below it. I know trusses are a very good way of building a wide cover supported only on the ends. I personally just don't like the space overhead that is eaten up by the trusses themselves. I've worked in shops that were essentially pole barns, and it wasn't that big a deal working around the poles. Built well, the spaces between the poles were the size of a decent garage space.

No matter how big the shop or garage, you're going to want bigger. So I'd try to build in such a way that future expansion is possible. I do like this aspect with the miracle-span. It would be simple enough to extend the building in the future.

I personally think I like gambrel construction. It's not cheap, but it seems like the best of both worlds to me. You gain a loft, you don't have trusses, and you can have an open shop floor below. They also look pretty to me. What can I say, I don't like ugly buildings, even if they are effective.

The engineer in me looks at the miracle-span and sees that the strength is coming from the depth of the V's, and the metal gage. I can't put any values to them because I don't know what they are. The wider the building though, the deeper those v's would have to be to hold up to the same snow a narrower span could take. Judging purely from the pricing scale, it seems that this point has been addressed; the wider spans are much more expensive. This would indicate to me that the metal is heavier and probably deeper v'd.

This type of construction is also extremely sensitive to the footing. Probably more so then just about any other type of construction. Again, this is the engineer in me looking at it, it is not based on any direct experience. Regardless, the engineer in me thinks the footing would be critical (double emphasize, underline, italicize).

I can't figure out what I think of the height of the miracle-span buildings though. At 12-15 feet, it is taller then what I would need for virtually everything I own, but too low for a second story or loft. Seems like quite a bit of wasted or lost overhead space.

Around here, Morton buildings are worshiped as the holy grail of steel buildings. I have no idea if they are or not. In any case, they are darn expensive.

Mountainman (CA)

Best Advise, Overbuild it!

1. The fondation will be the same or nearly the same for both types so there will be no difference in its cost.

2. All the wood for mine was less than $1k. That included 16 4x6s 20' long, all bracing and all truss material. It doesn't look like there system uses any internal structure.

3. The exterior metal and trim was less than $4k.

So all material was about $5k. However, the labor needs to be considered.

1. The slab can be a BEAR. The concrete pouring day is relitivly easy. The prep work can kill ya. It took me about 2 months, by myself, to do all the prep work and about 3 hour, with friends, to poor the concrete. Consider hireing that the slab.

2. The framing is farly simple. I did need help and equipment to get the trusses up. They were about 250# each. A cherry picker did the job just fine. If you build with the mirical system you will probably need to rent one also.

3. The metal work was also farly easy. Just takes time. There is alot of trim to install after it is dried in.

I have seen barn designed for 100+mph wind. This one is much stronger. This weekend we got strong winds. I had a pavilion distroyed. No damage to the barn. We don't get any snow in Houston so I can't speek to snow loads. If you build a pole barn, look at some in the area. See what works.

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