Greenbuilding Archive for August 2001

I'm interested in the  kit because it appears that one could do a good
share of the work oneself, but not have to do it all.  And as I said, the
photos showed a very attractive house.

On Thu, 23 Aug 2001, Gloria wrote:

> I built a pole barn with my dad many years ago, and DH and I will be 
> building a pole barn on our farm within the next 6 months or so. This is a 
> very cost-effective method of building. We will be able to build a 40 x 80 
> foot barn for less than $20k (USD) utilizing this method. I would NEVER 
> directly compare it to post and beam, however, as it is an apples to 
> oranges comparison -- post and beam is attractive; pole building is vert 
> utilitarian in appearance.
> 
> Since you are obviously concerned with environmental building, and since 
> you are apparently wanting a    company to erect your  building, you should 
> know that most barn building companies, such as Wick, Barnmaster, FS, 
> Morton, Cleary (these are all companies in MY area -- have no idea who 
> builds them in YOUR area) use CCA treated posts, because the posts are sunk 
> into the ground for the barn's foundation. I have yet to come across a barn 
> company that uses naturally rot resistant woods rather than CCA, 
> undoubtedly because CCA is comparatively cheap and plentiful. Perhaps now 
> that there is a CCX treatment that lacks arsenic, some barn companies will 
> begin using that, which would be a **little** more environmentally benign. 
> At least in our area, this new treatment seems slow to appear in the 
> lumberyards, however, so it is apparently not widely available. If you want 
> to build such a barn from a green perspective, you would probably have to 
> build it yourself. If you have some standing timber available of the 
> appropriate rot resistant species, you could build very cheaply. Or, 
> lacking access to any of the rot resistant species, you might consider 
> placing the poles on concrete piers and using a borate treatment to help 
> fend off termites, rather than sinking the poles into the ground. That 
> would raise your costs somewhat, and would bring concrete into the picture 
> which is itself not without environmental costs.
> 
> HTH,
> 
> 
> Gloria -- Organically Gardening in Illinois, USDA Zone 5B
> 
> Ingrid Newkirk, Founder, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) :
> "Animal liberationists do not separate out the human animal, so there is no 
> rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a 
> pig is a dog is a boy. They're all mammals."
> (Vogue, September, 1989)
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> This greenbuilding dialogue is sponsored by REPP/CREST, creator of
> Solstice http://www.crest.org, and BuildingGreen, Inc., publisher of
> Environmental Building News and GreenSpec http://www.BuildingGreen.com
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 

                         -|//*Alan Courtright*\\|=   
                                Poulsbo, WA
                             acourtri@krl.org
                       



______________________________________________________________________
This greenbuilding dialogue is sponsored by REPP/CREST, creator of
Solstice http://www.crest.org, and BuildingGreen, Inc., publisher of
Environmental Building News and GreenSpec http://www.BuildingGreen.com
______________________________________________________________________