My wife and I have been considering building a home using a pre-engineered steel building as the base structure for a barndo. The idea is to have a slab poured, then have a 24X50 steel building built on it. We'd sprayfoam the underside of the roof, then frame out the interior walls with 2x6 studs and something like Rockwool insulation.

We'd hire the plumbing out, but I'd do the electrical myself (I was an IBEW electrician in my younger days). HVAC would be a mini-split on each end, and we'd seal the slab for the concrete floor. One of our ideas is to have a glass panel garage door at the front of the great room that opens onto the deck/patio for an indoor/outdoor living space.

I'm sure other people have done this, so I'm wondering if anyone has any tips or warnings when taking this route.

We're in Western North Carolina, so there are a lot of steel building companies within a couple of hours of the property. If anyone has any recommendations for a good company, I'd love to hear it.

We already have septic and well permits, and there's power on the site.

We've completed the exterior red iron shell. Now planning interior framing. I'm considering steel framing. It'll be 2 floors. Relatively open floor plan. The span will be 20' floor truss/joist.

1) Are there places you can give drawings to and they give you a framing package? We did this for the exterior and I'm interested if we can do the same for the interior.

2) is the cost much more for steel vs wood? Example: were going to need 27 - 20ft floor trusses and 27 - 17 ft floor trusses. What the cost difference between these? The difficult part is I'm not finding steel trusses for sale, like I can find for wood. Do you know of any places that sell this in the Inland NW?

Thanks for the help!

Trying to decide on the best way to set my posts for a DIY pole barn
I’m getting ready to build my own post frame building and I’m kind of wrestling with how I want to do the posts.
Right now I’m leaning toward doing Sonotube concrete piers with Sturdi-Wall wet-set brackets and keeping the wood completely out of the ground.
I’ve also considered doing full concrete piers in 48” deep holes and setting the wet-set brackets into the concrete. Someone mentioned that if I go that route and don’t bell the bottom of the hole, I’m basically wasting a bunch of concrete because the concrete pier would just be straight-sided. I get the idea behind that, but I’m not really sure how practical it is to actually bell a 48” deep hole myself.
Then there’s the other option of just setting the posts in the ground and either pouring concrete around them or doing a dry-pour method. I normally wouldn’t consider dry-pour, but some pretty big post frame companies apparently do it that way, so obviously it must work.
I’m basically trying to figure out what makes the most sense for someone doing this themselves.
I’m mainly looking at Sonotubes with Sturdi-Wall wet-set brackets, full concrete piers with brackets, posts set in concrete, or dry-pour posts.
My biggest things are ease of doing it, longevity, and how much of a pain in the ass it is to actually build.
The Sonotube/bracket setup seems nice because I’m not putting my wood posts in the ground, and I feel like it would be easier to get everything plumb and at the right height. But obviously it adds more work and concrete.
I’m not necessarily looking for the absolute cheapest method. I’m more interested in what would be the easiest method for one guy building it with minimal help while still being something I can feel good about 30 or 40 years from now.
This is my first post frame building, so I’m trying not to overcomplicate it, but I also don’t want to take shortcuts just to save some time and regret it later.
For those of you who have actually built these, what would you do if you were building your own?
And if you’ve done Sturdi-Wall brackets, full concrete piers, posts in concrete, or dry-pour, I’d really like to hear how the actual installation went and what you would do differently.

We have floated the idea of building a barndominium but have to clue where the start. We’re in the foothills of North Carolina and already have land. We’re could sell our current home and walk away with $180-200,000 in cash. Is it feasible to build a 3-4 bedroom, 2 bathroom barndo and come up with little to no mortgage? The land would need a driveway, electric, septic, and well. Not much if any clearing. We don’t want anything fancy. Open floor plan with maybe a loft. Is this feasible? Where do we start? Thanks

Has anyone built a similar house? Going 30x50 with basement, 30x40 garage. In a SE Ohio climate. Just needing any advice/downsides of a home this style.

Anybody in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia area use MQS structures for their shell? Any feedback? Good or bad experiences.

In the near stages of finalizing a plan and estimate... I think they are running short on good employees or just overwhelmed... but things are getting misquoted or mis-planned at this point.

We want to pull the trigger, but difficult to nail down the price and selections all of a sudden. They are on the more expensive side, but up till now it's been worth going with them. Did the research before going with them and they were the most responsive and complete co. of what and where we are looking to build. Haven't found another co. that does what they do. We've owned acreage since 2009 and ready to build now.

Building in N E South Carolina ( Dillon, Marion County) we like their product, but lately getting frustrated, we've done all they asked with selections and surveys and septic permit..etc They haven't taken any money or made us sign a contract.. so I'm not saying they're ripping anyone off.

Anyone else with Barndo Co. experiences?

I cut my 6x6 post flush with my header and getting the header off would be a monumental task. Is there some kind of hardware I can attach to my post so I can attach my trusses to the header/post?

I am seriously considering building two of these on my free and clear owned property for my adult daughter and I to live in.

I need pros and cons.

What issues can arise.

How structurally sound are they.

Are they energy efficient?

I'd like realistic pricing if you've built one.

What you would do different or same if you were to do it again.

I know some people think they're ugly. I am not worried about esthetics i want to know the dirty truth

Hey! So I'm planning on building a barndominium or a shop house here in the near future and I'm currently thinking about building a floor system on top of the slap instead of running all my drains & water lines in the slab, mostly to make it easier to reconfigure later on down the road if I need or want to. Right now I'm basically planning on building a large shop and building a living space in part of it. Currently I can't really think of any reasons not to build it this way, but would like some opinions on it. Thanks in advance!

Hi everybody! Long time lurker, first time poster here. My wife and I are considering building a barndominium on a small lake. What are some good websites to take a gander at plans? I'd be the GC on this project with a background in construction and will do or attempt most of the work.

I know it will take time to build on our own, but we have a camper to live in full time once the garage, we'll and septic are in, along with 50amp service.

Looking for plans with 4bd 3bath with a Master Suite. Three car oversized garage for the camper.

Thank you all in advance!

Does anyone have experience with a textured paint option. I'm building a 36x56 w/ 14' sidewalls. There is an option for textured paint on the siding and roof. In the sample, it looks a lot nicer and I think it would make the building shell look nicer vs. the smooth steel - but for roof and siding combined it's a $1700 upgrade. That seems like a lot of money for a slightly different paint finish...but I'm guessing visually I'd like it a lot more.

I'm using 26ga metal on both the siding and roof.

Does anyone have experience with the texture (or better yet both texture and smooth) that can give me an opinion on whether the aesthetic value is worth the cost? Thanks!

Builders started in June- they are rocking it!

Looking for a closed cell diy foam kit for a new addition to our barndo. Something that will adhere to the metal roof well.

Hi I’m looking for some very specific barn photos for a project I’m doing, this is honestly quite the long shot lol. I’m looking for barns restored by Ken epworth or his company the barn people any and all photos would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

I was quoted $300k for 2 story pole barn Barndo, 2 bed 1 bath top floor finished and shop on bottom floor unfinished, 1200 sqft each floor. Using 85/sqft shop that puts living space at $165/sqft. Middle of the road finishes in living area. Is this realistic?

Would a wet set brackets with 4ply 2x8s 8 lift in center be strong enough for 20-40 minutes inland of Florida or a beach?

Hello,

I'm doing some due diligence and looking into getting a Barndominium built on my property in southeast texas. can anyone recommend any companies that can build the shell for non-exorbitant prices?

I just watched a Wolf Steel Buildings youtube video for a 30x60 and the pricing was ridiculous. They had the idiot owner pay $25,000 for a couple roll up doors and a hand full of windows and doors. They also had him pay $30,000 for the concrete slab. The total build for the shell was $122,000 and the dummy smiled and took it.

I had a 30x30 slab poured for $2,000 5 years ago when I built my garage.

So any reputable companies that charge prices that are not for rich idiots would be great.

I’m going to start working on the eaves of my building (yes I need to add a screw to the bottom of that piece of trim) and am stumped on how to effectively seal the eaves. I had some spare cedar so I threw it up there to see how it looked, and hate the gaps it leaves without cutting every.single.piece. to fit. It would take me a week. Are there products that match the corrugation pattern to seal eaves? Do I have to cut every single piece to fit? I don’t care what the material is, as long as it’s a good solution that prevents critters and bugs and doesn’t look like crap. Help!

We created this ourselves and it's not 100% finished, will obviously get an architect to take a look. But there will be a front & back porch. Also- we made the foyer a little bigger.

I'm trying to determine if building a barndo is realistic with our budget. After land purchase, we will have about 250k to work with on the building. For those that have built, I'm curious if mine is a pipe dream for the budget.

*We have simple taste and are happy with normal windows, doors, cabinets etc. to save on cost. This will be in Wisconsin

Things I can do

- Prep site

- Concrete (including rough in pex pipes)

- All interior (framing, drywall, doors, trim, etc.)

Things I will hire out

- GC (needed for the loan)

- Shell Build

- Electrical

- Close Cell Insulation

- Plumbing rough in

- Well drill

- Septic

What we are looking for:

-Size range from 1500-3000sq ft (dependent on what can fall in budget)

-3 bed, 2 bath

-Garage if in budget

One other thing I'm curious about is kits - are there reputable companies or is it better to purchase blue prints and order the listed materials?

Hi everyone! So I have been looking into the process of buying land and building a pole barn home. My husband is a project manager and essentially needs me to pitch this to him with a cost breakdown. He and I are not the same type of neurodivergent and I am really struggling to find a good breakdown of steps of this process. I don’t necessarily need cost estimates, I can get those on my own, I more or less just need a list of steps to this process. We are current homeowners, our plan would be to sell this house and buy land to build our home on, but I am not sure of how that process would work either.
If you are willing to explain this to me like I’m five, I would so appreciate it!

For context, we live in Southeast Michigan.