Jungle recovery - Very Large Shop

[Dunbar]

Three lots North of me is a 17 acre spread straddling our mile long road with 9 residents on acreage lots. The guy who owned it is a commercial real estate agent. He and wife planned to build on the almost 10 acres on one side of the road and build motorbike trails on the other. Five years later I find out they are divorced and he subdivides 7 acres on one side of the road and sells 3 lots. Then his wife, apparently a residential real estate agent, puts the remaining 9+ acres on the market. I had seen in the distance what looked like some stacked I-beams. I texted her and asked if she wanted to get rid of that pile of metal on her lot. She replied that yes she wanted it gone and I could have it. I did an initial recon and it was tough to see what I was looking at.

This stack is chest high and at least 15 feet deep. Hard to tell how long so I looked at Google Maps and the imagery was taken soon after he had semi truck('s?) deliver the steel. This was before the Jungle took over, which happens so fast around here that I named my tractor Agent Orange. On the map image I measured the I-beams and estimated they were 35' long. I figured there was no way my Kubota L2501 could lift them and I would have to rent a 4 wheel drive forklift and a big ass trailer to move them.

A buddy helped me and we found that my little tractor could just lift these beasts with the forks. We didn't try to remove the jungle and just lifted the first few beams off of the stack which pulled enough jungle off to see what we were looking at. I borrowed a 20' car hauler and threw a couple of timbers across the rails and balanced one of the 35' beams on it. We through a ratchet strap over the front end and used his pickup to haul one over to my place. These looked like the rafters or roof beams and there were a couple of other haphazardly stacked piles that were the columns.

We used my grapple to pull apart the stacks and got those laid out, still trying to get a handle on what the heck this beast was. Whatever it turns out to be, I decided it was worth the effort to get it over to my place. My buddy helped for 2 days then I did the rest myself. I got to where I could load 4 roof beams on the trailer, unhitch my forks on top, put my skid steer ball mound attachment on the front of the tractor and haul the load to my place. Using the tractor helped negotiate the tight turn onto and off of the road and down my long tree lined driveway to the lower pasture at the rear of my place.

I think I have 2 separate buildings. One was painted and the other natural red iron. There were some misc pieces that might be a gantry crane and there is a stack of Z iron some of which might be serviceable. I need to do a proper inventory and get all the like pieces stacked together. I can measure the ends of the columns and roof beams and count the bolt holes to see what goes with what and figure out what these units would look like when assembled.

There is a level riding arena between this fence line and my barn that I was dreaming of putting a 40'x80' shop into one day. I have been told by a guy who puts up steel buildings that I just need to pour the footers for the columns and the building('s) can be erected, blasted, painted and roofed. Before I can get going on that I need to figure out what the building looks like. The roof beams bolt together in the middle meaning that the spread is about 70 foot. The building length depends on how many column's and roof beam sets are erected and the spacing. I found a building going up near me that has similar steel and I think mine would look like this flat topped sloped roof beast.

This building has 7 pairs of columns with bolted together roof beams. I have 6 white painted roof beam pairs and 5 red ones. Anyone here have and idea what I'm looking at here? I probably have room for a 70'x100' building. At first it would be an open aired dirt floored "riding arena" which the local assessor would certainly be used to in horse country. Plumbing, car lift, slab, siding and build out would happen as funds and time allows. I'd love to get my boat and shipping containers under roof and part of it enclosed.

 

[Michael B]

Maybe the former owner has some building plans they would be willing to share.

 

[spazzyfry123]

Cool project!

 

[knuckle47]

This is one heck of a find….good luck on it going to the easy button

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Great find but it looks like you need a lot of girts and purlins to make a usable frame. Obviously you also need sheet metal for the roof and walls. It might be a difficult ask due to liability concerns but I would try to find a metal building company that would work with you to supply the balance of materials you need.

 

[LDowney]

Maybe the former owner has some building plans they would be willing to share.

Great find but it looks like you need a lot of girts and purlins to make a usable frame. Obviously you also need sheet metal for the roof and walls. It might be a difficult ask due to liability concerns but I would try to find a metal building company that would work with you to supply the balance of materials you need.

Concur. Maybe I am a worry wart ... I also see tracking down the history to gain the engineering behind these components (design analysis that would support permits) as important. Without it, permits/insurance liability/ ... might require a load/stress analysis for these components to support using them in a structure of the size that they would support.

Great score and good luck

 

[Chungas Revenge]

@Dunbar

The “Paddy Mayne” avatar is epic… AKA Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Blair Mayne.




One of seven siblings, Robert Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne (1915-55) was born into a prosperous family in Newtownards in Northern Ireland. He was a superb athlete and all-round sportsman, most notably representing both Ireland and the British Lions at rugby.
Mayne was a complex and enigmatic character. A man of great intelligence, he trained as a solicitor and developed a love of literature. Yet he was also troubled and tempestuous. Overly fond of alcohol, with an outrageous sense of humour, Mayne’s raucous behaviour could often spill over into violence.
His antics during the British Lions tour of South Africa in 1938 have become the stuff of legend. Accounts of his behaviour there include smashing up hotel rooms, drunken brawling with dock workers, freeing a convict he had befriended, and dumping the bloody carcass of an antelope on the floor of his hotel following a midnight hunting adventure.

 

[PIP]

Great score!

Red iron building framework is surprisingly light when the buildings aren't spec'd for a crane (you would see crane rail perches on the uprights if it was crane spec). So they're surprisingly manageable to assemble with a forklift or telehandler.

Red iron building frames are almost always painted with what is essentially Rustoleum red oxide primer. The members aren't usually blasted. They're just wiped down with acetone and slathered with paint by some high school kids. What works pretty good to make a used red-iron building structure look like new for the next 100 years or so is to power wash them then run a 6" knotted cup wire wheel on a 9" grinder over every surface then slather more Rustoleum red oxide primer on them. I recommend doing this job in stages. Like one set of columns and trusses at a time and it's pretty manageable. Sandblasting all that is a big job and expensive.

Steel buildings always have a very thick structural slab edge and all the ones erected around me in the past decade are required to have a "foundation beam" in the slab that goes from column to column directly under each truss. The foundation beams are typically 2ft x 2ft in section with lots of rebar. If you were to put each column on it's own independent footing that footing needs to be pretty good size and a couple feet down below grade with a formed column with a pad for the columns.

Go ahead and price out rolled steel Z's and C's for the outside, but have a chair nearby so you can sit down when you get the price. Last time I priced them out for a big building I designed and built myself I was quoted around $10/lb for rolled Z metal. In contrast, structural steel is around $1.10/lb currently and was 85 cents/lb back then. So I spent $15k on new steel tubing (I went much heavier) instead of $40k on rolled steel garbage for that build. I had to paint it, but that cost me about $120 in paint and rollers and some time.

If you want an alternative suggestion-

You have more steel than you need for the size of building you want @ 20ft column centers.

Build a hybrid building. Put the columns on 10 or 12ft centers and use wood 2x6's or 2x8's on the steel like a pole building. I personally will never build more than 10ft centers with 2x6's or 12ft with 2x8's. If you go this route, have tabs laser cut from 12 or 14g steel with screw holes and weld those tabs on every column and truss on the ground where every piece of wood attaches. This takes a lot of time, but the building will go up unbelievably fast once the trusses are set. You will save so much time in the air.

One more recommendation if you put this building up- Factor the cost of buying a used scissor lift (or boom lift) into the cost of putting up the building. Renting one 10 times pays for buying one. You will need a scissor lift much more than 10 days to put this building up.