Foundation questions?
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.