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pole barn floor leveling questions

S

steve-in-ga

Member
I am planning for a new pole barn to store hay under 26x40. Not planning on pouring a slab. I squared and marked the corners this weekend and shot the grade since the land is slopped a little. I will need about 30 yards of fill to level the floor and build it up a bit also.

What fill should I use that will pack fairly well and not wash away?

Is it better to get the fill dumped inside the footprint of the floor and then use a tractor and box blade to pull it where it is needed or dump it outside the foot print and then use a front-end loader to scoop and place where needed? Or does it even matter?

How high should I build it up at a time before packing?

Any other helpful thoughts are appreciated also.
 
Sounds like a fun project...will be worth it when your done. My pole barn was erected on a slight slope ; after it was done I leveled the floor with 3-6" of asphalt millings; been 4 yrs now and the floor is awesome and the price was right. The County appraiser did not raise the taxes on asphalt. I would not recommend sand; maybe your top soil is good dirt. If you have a roof it wont wash away; if your talking about the approach - it will. You can use millings on the approach or top soil- I used top soil and planted grass- yes I have to mow infront of shed but it doesnt wash away.:) Good luck on your project.
 
Are you planning on making the area level before or after you erect the building?

Unless the building is very tall, you probably won't be able to dump a truck inside of it. At best you might be able to dump it just inside the door, so either you have multiple doors or have the tractor and loader inside to move it around.

Beforehand, you may as well take advantage of the truck's ability to spread the fill so you have less tractor work later. That is if the ground will support the truck. You don't want a loaded truck mired down in the mud.
 
I think it's easier to level and pack the grade ahead of time.

When I put up a 30x48 pole barn several years ago, before I had any prep work done the low corner was a foot lower than the high corner. We decided to build it up 6" above the high corner. My cousin's son came down with one of their huge earth movers with an engine on both ends and did the work. All he used was that big machine, and when we laid out the building we shot it with a transit. All four corners were within 2". When I complimented him on it, he shrugged and said, "Sometimes I get lucky".

It was a lot simpler and easier doing it that way than trying to level and pack after the building was up.
 
My 40x98 shed is 4' higher on the east and is ground level on west. The county reworked the road the year before i built it and all their waste was dumped on the site and graded flat, then the shed was built. Unwashed sand was banked on the outside then capped with several inches of topsoil and seeded. As ihe road spoil settled small amounts of unwashed sand was used in low areas. Tractors and combine did the rest and it packed like concrete. 22A road gravel is being added to the top and packs well. All this has worked very well.
 
The key thing is to have the site graded such that you have good drainage in all directions. If you do that, the particular fill isn't as important.

I mostly used sand for my fill and packed it well. 15 years later it has not shifted.
 
(quoted from post at 09:42:48 08/27/18) Different areas have different material available, but around here I would use crusher run. It has enough fines and angular pieces that it locks together pretty well.
Pete
Click to expand...

This is what I used for my tractor shed, put a string line around the perimeter a couple inches above grade. Used the loader to dump in the gravel while a worker on a shovel was spreading and leveling it. More than 6 inches may need some sort of retainer. I just used gravel for a long entry ramp. Has held up well even though I didn't pack it other than drive on it with the tractors.
 
(quoted from post at 12:42:48 08/27/18) Different areas have different material available, but around here I would use [b:d062585ac7]crusher run.[/b:d062585ac7] It has enough fines and angular pieces that it locks together pretty well.
Pete
Click to expand...
Same here (called "crusher sand" or "screenings" up here in SE Michigan). I just put 250 tons on my site. I was about 1 foot higher on one end of my 72' PB site so I filled the base to about 6" above the high end. I didn't get it perfectly flat, though. It's crowned in the middle which will allow me to set the skirt boards to that crowned height and work with the boards without having the base material get in the way. When it's up, I'll fill in the sides against the skirt boards from the inside with crusher sand and backfill with topsoil on the outside.

When doing the fill, I was having semis drop material and then I'd spread and run over it with my tractor in about 3-6" lifts. By the time I got one load packed, they were back with another. Set up real well and the fully loaded trucks didn't make a dent in the base when they drove over it.
 
Here you can specify the size of "crusher run" 1/2, 3/4, 1" etc. It's basically the size of the largest rock. Screens are what is left over from cleaning washed gravel which is mostly all one size. Crusher run contains everything that comes out of the crusher including fines which is what makes it good for driveways, the fines fill in the gaps and it compacts to a pretty solid surface.

I used 1/2" crusher run in my tractor shed which is pretty small and compacts really well. I use 3/4 - 1" on the drive, 1/2 is nice to drive on but doesn't hold up very long with allot of traffic.
 
I leveled my dirt with a dewalt self leveling rotating laser. It was spot on. Used same laser to set purlins. Laser was a good investment. Or you can rent one.

I've seen at a construction site where they use a large roller and pack about 2 inches at at time.

I leveled my clay soil, let it get rained on a few times. Ground was hard as a brick. Then I put 6 inches of concrete on the caly, a continuous 30x40 ft pour. Not the first sign of settling, cracking or nothing, 10 years ago.
 
I have always had the site leveled before building anything. The best footing I have is compacted blue clay. Anything but top soil will compact pretty well for a base. I usually have dirt/fill on grade and flat but 6-12 inches lower than I want the final grade. The depth depends on what I am planning on the flooring being made of. In your case I would level it to six inches below final grade. The use larger base stone (1- 1 1/2inch) for 3-4 inches and finish it off with 3/4 crusher run with the fines.

Make sure and have the level site at least 4-6 foot larger than your building. That way you can make sure the final outside grade falls away from the building/shed.
 

Pretty much every project that I haul material for gets sand first with crusher run over it. The sand allows water to pass through and be gone as opposed to being held like clay or dirt do. The crusher run gives you strength and a surface that will stay put when compacted.
 
With all the helpful responses you have here you can still have problems. I live on heavy clay that a Civil Engineer, doing a standpipe design for one of our community wells deemed the soil "unfit for dwellings or roadways". Case in point, county upgraded the roads from gravel to asphalt-rock hard surface, about 10 years ago. Spent a lot of time packing the subsoil.

Came in with about 3' of gravel base with a good dose of "finds"; water truck trips over it, Ram's foot packers just like the state boys use, and all the good stuff....county has a hefty tax base and has all the tools needed for the job.

Today there are sink holes in the road a foot or so deep over 20' of roadway for example that have been filled in with asphalt plugs several time and still sinking; the edges crack and fall off into the ditch, my yard has been leveled with I don't know how many 25ton loads of soil, my house has been leveled just about twice a year for 40 years, all my slabs are broken, on and on. The state just got through upgrading all the roads around my house and they no more got their equipment moved off to another job and the sides were already sinking and cracking the surface.

There is another area on the state highway on top of one of these hills around here that has shifting plates in about 4 places. In the 40 years I've lived here, at least every 10 or so years they come out, whack off the top, smooth it out to level, rebuild the sub surface and retop just to have it poke out again.

Regardless of how well you prepare the site, if the subsoil has a lot of shifting, your well laid plans will not be as you desired. Good luck.
 
(quoted from post at 17:54:10 08/28/18) With all the helpful responses you have here you can still have problems. I live on heavy clay that a Civil Engineer, doing a standpipe design for one of our community wells deemed the soil "unfit for dwellings or roadways". Case in point, county upgraded the roads from gravel to asphalt-rock hard surface, about 10 years ago. Spent a lot of time packing the subsoil.

Came in with about 3' of gravel base with a good dose of "finds"; water truck trips over it, Ram's foot packers just like the state boys use, and all the good stuff....county has a hefty tax base and has all the tools needed for the job.

Today there are sink holes in the road a foot or so deep over 20' of roadway for example that have been filled in with asphalt plugs several time and still sinking; the edges crack and fall off into the ditch, my yard has been leveled with I don't know how many 25ton loads of soil, my house has been leveled just about twice a year for 40 years, all my slabs are broken, on and on. The state just got through upgrading all the roads around my house and they no more got their equipment moved off to another job and the sides were already sinking and cracking the surface.

There is another area on the state highway on top of one of these hills around here that has shifting plates in about 4 places. In the 40 years I've lived here, at least every 10 or so years they come out, whack off the top, smooth it out to level, rebuild the sub surface and retop just to have it poke out again.

Regardless of how well you prepare the site, if the subsoil has a lot of shifting, your well laid plans will not be as you desired. Good luck.
Click to expand...

Texasmark1, this is why they require sand underneath here. You have to give the water a way out.
 
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