My farmhouse - “Flat, as a pancake”
As a kid, I loved hearing John Banner(Sergeant Schultz of Hogan’s Heroes)’s exclamation, “Flat … as a pancake!” It was the first thought that popped into my head as I scaled the dirt pile at my construction site and looked out across my farmhouse …
Yes, the piles that stretch far and wide represent the exterior of the farmhouse sans six doors and fifteen windows. (BTW: if that does not sound like a lot, remember that one of those doors takes up 700+ square feet of wall space.
It’s an interesting feat of engineering and a testament to geometry when you understand the building has no interior supports. The entire 60′x80′x18′ interior plus the rafter space is open. There are no interior columns; no cross beams; no need for interior walls - beyond forming various rooms - are necessary; and the entire ‘ceiling’ is vaulted to the roof line.
Part of what makes this possible is the tapered walls. What makes then interesting is that they taper from about 9″ deep at the bottom to 18″ at the top - yes, they are bigger on top than bottom. I tried to take a picture of the columns but then realized that the perspective view the camera gave the image - things look smaller in the distance - it totally distorted the presentation. I’ve included the picture anyway. There are two identical columns with one flipped relative to the other. If you look at just the close end, you can see the difference between the “top” and the “bottom” of a column. There are five of these for each of the 80′ long exterior walls.
All of this steel comes “not exactly courtesy” of Butler Buildings. They took my design and generated the engineered drawings and the massive “erector set” of parts. It will be the equivalent of “connect beam # 101 to rail # 64 using four # 8 bolts”.
One bit of good news is that they crew assembling this huge “erector set” will have electricity. The local power company finished installed the temporary service ! They had to install a new pole out at the road - clearly visible in the first photo <giggle>. Then they buried about 2000′ of 250KV power line down the driveway to the building site; and finally installed the transformer.
It’s amazing how much joy one gets from a little round object *and* how expensive it can be ! <sigh>
