Jan 30 2022 / Pole Building ,

How Do You Fix a Sagging Pole Building in Sioux City?

How do you fix a sagging pole building? You pick up the phone and call an experienced post-frame building contractor in Sioux City for the kinds of post-frame building repairs that get your structure back to like-new condition. If you’re wondering how it got that way to begin with, or how to prevent these kinds of repairs, well, we can help there too!

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Do You Need to Straighten Your Pole Barn?

Good question. Here’s how you know when it’s time to call Koskovich & Murphy Developments to repair a post-frame building in Sioux City.

  • The roof line sags or bulges
  • The walls have bowed in or out
  • You notice deterioration or other stress to beams and supports
  • You see cracks in drywall
  • Windows and doors have difficulty opening or closing or don’t seat correctly in their frames
  • Your building has a “twisted” appearance
  • Floors or countertops have unpredictable tilting or bowing

What Causes a Pole Barn to Sag or Twist?

Before we explore how to fix a sagging pole barn, let’s look at how it got that way in the first place. In the simplest possible terms, any building sags or twists because it wasn’t properly designed and built to handle one or more of the three types of building load.

Dead Load

The dead load, or static load, is the weight of raw materials used to build a barndominium in Sioux City, including beams, walls, flooring, wiring, and all of the other elements that are intrinsic to the structure. Other permanent components, including HVAC equipment and ductwork, are also figured into the dead load. If a building isn’t properly designed to stand under its weight, sagging and twisting will develop.

Live Load

Even buildings properly designed for the dead load can have structural issues if they aren’t properly engineered for live load. Live, or dynamic, the load is the added stress that comes from everything else added to a building after it’s erected. As such, it may be distributed or point load, and its nature may change over time; from Grandma’s china to bookcases, furniture, and even vehicles, the live load is a prime contributor to problems in post-frame buildings.

Environmental Load

Sioux City gets an average of 32.3 inches of snowfall per year, nearly four inches higher than the national average. Building owners also have to contend with wind and other environmental forces. While snow load acts as a vertical load, wind and other factors can act as a lateral load, which can contribute to twisting especially when it’s combined with a badly-distributed vertical load.

Other Factors in Pole Barn Wear

Bear in mind that not every problem with a building traces back to poor design, engineering, or construction. Unless something has been heavily over-engineered, every structure has its limits, and occasionally events will come along — a hundred-year blizzard, unusual seismic activity, a lowering water table, or a sinkhole, for example — that can also undermine a building’s integrity.

Preventing Major Pole Barn Repairs

A sagging pole barn is by no means inevitable. It can be prevented, but the best prevention starts during the design phase of your building, continues through its construction, and of course, requires a bit of pole barn maintenance once the structure is complete.

  • Don’t skimp on materials; load-bearing posts should use only pressure-treated lumber that meets or exceeds Commodity Specification A, Use Category 4B, while many big-box retailers carry only UC 4A. 
  • Don’t just use “posts”; cross-laminated timber bears loads better and also excels at resisting the forces that would normally cause sagging or twisting.
  • Don’t just sink a post into the ground and assume you’re done. If you’ve ever seen or worn snowshoes, you know the importance of weight distribution, and why posts need to be sunk into concrete footers of the proper depth and diameter.
  • Don’t wait on repairs; a fix that could be quick and minor if caught and addressed early can metastasize into a major project through time and neglect.
  • Do not try to undertake your repairs, or call on a handyman; the tools and materials used to matter, and the work involved is relatively simple, for an experienced post-frame building contractor in Sioux City.

Post-Frame Building Repair in Sioux City

If your pole barn, barndominium, or another custom post-frame building requires repair, we do not suggest trying a DIY fix. Instead, get in touch with Koskovich & Murphy Developments, and take advantage of our experience for post-frame building repair done right!

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