New Sugar House

[Maple Man 85]

I am building a 30x45 pole building to serve as our new sugar house. The question I have is how tall to build it? I won't need a copula because I'm going with a steam hood. I'm thinking 10 feet. Also any advise on foundation would be of great help, would it be better to pour footings and have the building on top the slab or put the posts in the ground and poor the slab after the builds up?

Any advise or lessons learned would be greatly appreciated.

[RUNOFBANK]

Ten feet should be fine. What sort of clearances does that leave from hood. Where will the holding tank be? Inside? Do you need additional height for that?
What is the ground like. Clay, hard pan, sand...???
Building off an Alaskan/monolithic slab may cost a bit more than a traditional pole barn. If going pole barn. I would recommend looking into perma columns www.permacolumn.com for posts below grade. They also offer laminated posts that are very true. No twists and turns. Another alternative is a big foot or pre cast pier and sturdi wall bracket. Probably the most costly would be to build off of a footing and frost wall. Local building codes may dictate.

[Cedar Eater]

I'm considering building a shed with post and beam construction similar to a pole barn. I stumbled across the FootingPads as a replacement for the traditional concrete pads. http://www.mobilehomestuffstore.com/browse.cfm/abs-footer-pad-10round-/4,38.html#.VsPKJPIrLIV

[Maple Man 85]

It leaves roughly 3 feet of clearance, also the ground is clay which freezes and shifts so I need to get below the frost line which on a cold year could go up to 4 feet (Northcentral Wisconsin).

[Cedar Eater]

I built a 30 X 56 pole barn over clay. The inspector wanted the posts to be set 48 inches deep on top of 8" thick by 12" diameter poured footings, so that's what I did. it wasn't easy to get down the required 56", but at least with clay I didn't have problems with the walls collapsing (much). The inside height was 10' and the posts were 4X6 treated 8' OC.

[MISugarDaddy]

We built our 24'X24' firewood storage building as a pole barn with posts 48" in the ground, which is local code, and an 18" rat wall trench which we filled with concrete when we poured the floor. If we had it to do over, I would have used a full 48" deep foundation/footing, because frost still gets under the slab and has caused heaving of the floor. All of our other out buildings, including our sugarhouse have full foundations and we have not had any problem with the floors in those buildings heaving. It may be more work and more expensive, but I think it is worth it, especially in your sugarhouse.
Gary

[Maple Man 85]

Thanks for the info Gary I am for sure looking into it, I plan to make sugar until I physically can't anymore and then I'm hoping my kids/grandkids take over. Having a building that lasts is important!!!
Anthony