Howdy All:
Well, we made some great progress on the Pole Barn this past week or so:
- after little response on pricing and availability for insulation from my usual building materials supplier, I checked elsewhere and found that I could get everything I needed from another supplier at the "Contractor" price which is about 5-8% lower than retail.
This saved me about $200 - which is useful. So, on Wednesday I ordered 32 bales of
R22 Roxul Rockwool insulation (better than the usual
fibreglas pink - because mice apparently do not eat the
Roxul) and it was all delivered on Thursday afternoon. The
Rockwool R22 is sized for pole barns - the batts are 6" thick x 24" high x 47" long which is perfect for the 96" spaced 6x6 post and beam construction of a barn.
This weekend, my daughter Marie and her fiance, Adam came down from Kitchener and helped us complete all of the exterior lighting and receptacle wiring and put-up the insulation and vapour-barrier in the barn. This stuff goes up fast and it made a huge difference to the interior quietness and I expect it will be a big help with energy savings too. It's too bad that we didn't have the walls insulated earlier in the heating season - but that's the way it goes. I am sure that the R60 above the ceiling did help this winter and the beauty of insulation is that it does not wear out and continues to pay for itself - even more as energy prices rise.
Adam - Master Insulator and super-good guy:
Mrs. MaxPete and Marie cut the vapour barrier into 12'8" long strips for installation on the 12 ft. high wall (and you can see the wiring "pigtail" emerging from the insulation):
Marie got some practice supervising her future hubby as he worked on the vapour barrier:
We even got a few sheets of 1/2" thick G1S spruce plywood up to begin completing the interior walls of the structure. The plywood goes up 4 ft. from the floor and for the 8' above that I plan to install a PVC paneling called
TrussCore (
https://trusscore.com/) which is intended for workshops and doesn't require painting. The idea of the plywood on the bottom is that if I bash into it or a spark from welding hits it, the wall won't be damaged and, if some day, it does take a bad hit, I can just screw-on a new piece of plywood.
There will be a double-duplex 110v receptacle box at each post and the 220V welding circuit is in the first bay at right - just inside the overhead door.
For the wiring installation, I am using a technique that I saw on YouTube in which all the conductors are run
inside the walls but the boxes are
surface mounted on the wall interior side. That way, you just cut a hole in the plywood with a 1.25" dia. holesaw and poke the wire through and directly into the back-side of the steel surface-mount device box. You can see the white Romex 14/2 receptacle wiring poking out in the corner and the heavier gauge orange 6/3 for the welding circuit a little further along the wall in the photo above.
A linky to the video in which the wiring method is explained. It is easy and I think it looks pretty good - plus I didn't have to mess with bending conduit.
Anyhow, we're making progress - and that's what counts.
Cheers,
Pete