Build thread , not guitar, Riding Arena.

[J.R. Rogers]

I really like that tune, Kev. What a nice drive down to the barn. I'll bet plowing that is a full time job though. As you turned the corner and the barn came into view, that looked like about an 18' snow drift on the left!

JR

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by J.R. Rogers

I really like that tune, Kev. What a nice drive down to the barn. I'll bet plowing that is a full time job though. As you turned the corner and the barn came into view, that looked like about an 18' snow drift on the left!

JR

Yes it definitely takes some time both my wife and do it,,,, and on heavy snowfall days 8 " inches or more, it takes about 4 hours (fortunately we have the machines to handle it ). She has a 50 HP cabbed tractor with front bucket bucket and rear snow blower (the one on the right in photo below) , and goes first down clearing the garage area then the driveway, and then at the bottom of hill (where in the video I make the sharp right) she goes left and does the road out to the highway (another 1/2 mile). I usually follow with the skid steer that has a high flow hydraulic snowblower front mounted and go right and up to the barn.

The big snow banks at the barn , not 18' but a good 8 to 12 feet ( I think the ones you are talking about ) are plowed and bucketed with my bigger 75 Hp tractor


But for long road runs hard to beat blowing with the Skidsteer and a " HighFlow Hydraulic" snow blower



Typical "snow clearing" day starts like this, with Jody starting to clear the driveway parking area at the house

[KevWind]

Just realized I had left out some the delivery photos. (in a different photo album )

And a quick Caveat. My wife (Jody ) and I are very much partners in any construction and real estate dealings, we have done. Which has been a few. We have built 3 houses and this arena from the ground up, and done major renovation/remodels on 4 houses together.

Jody overseeing the delivery.



Interestingly the Morton Buildings truck is also a forklift for unloading materials at the job site (pretty slick)




Including the main roof trusses

.

Which are fairly massive 2 x12 top and bottom cord and 72 ft long





So after drilling the holes the Morton column bases are set for elevation, leveled and braced for concrete.

[M Hayden]

Nice work! Will any of the floor sections be concrete (e.g, mechanical room, etc)?

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by M Hayden

Nice work! Will any of the floor sections be concrete (e.g, mechanical room, etc)?

Yes both the mechanical and tack room, have concrete floors and will get floor tile covering. I will show some photos a bit later on.

The side sheds have crushed gravel road base. The tack up room will have rubber matts over gravel. The stalls & runs, will have sand (crusher fines) over gravel, and the stalls will also get rubber matts and pine shaving bedding.

The entire excavated area is hard packed dirt/clay base (which is what we had when we scraped the 2 to 3 ft of top soil off) and the arena will get aprox. 2-2/12 inches of crusher fines sand footing over that dirt base.
Also have gravel road base aprox 12 ft wide all around outside of building

[KevWind]

OK the column bases are all set and plumb. Now for the columns (on 7 ft. centers ). They erect them in sets of four, that they build flat on the ground with 2x4 stringer cross bracing, and stack them ready for fork lifting into place .

You can see the truss pocket on the tops of the columns


Then they use a stretcher bar on the end of the Telehandler forks, and lift them into place.
The boxes in the foreground are the window frames

[KevWind]

Once they get the columns all in place for the main building. The start setting(flying ) the trusses. Yay

First truss (west end)



This is how they do it, they have a a guy on the ground with strap on the end of the truss. and 2 guys up on each side ready to secure them.

They walk the truss at an angle through the inside and then lift and swing it into place (luckily there was no wind to speak of )

[hubcapsc]

That's some really nice wood in the trusses... clear 2x12s, but some of
the web pieces have knots... I was reading about how different
parts of a truss are different grades of wood, some of the web pieces
are in compression and some in tension...



Here's another difference between where you live and South
Carolina: our freeze depth is one inch ... our footers have
to go to "undisturbed soil", but we don't have to worry about
frost heave...



-Mike

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by hubcapsc

That's some really nice wood in the trusses... clear 2x12s, but some of the web pieces have knots... I was reading about how different parts of a truss are different grades of wood, some of the web pieces
are in compression and some in tension...

Here's another difference between where you live and South
Carolina: our freeze depth is one inch ... our footers have
to go to "undisturbed soil", but we don't have to worry about
frost heave...
-Mike

Yes all the wood is Southern Yellow Pine which apparently is as structural as Doug Fir but weighs much less.

Yes the frost line here is 27 to 34 inches. But honestly the only time frost heave is an issue is from pot holes or cracks in paved roads ... Not only did we have to go to "undisturbed soil" which was easy since we did not fill, instead we cut the top of hill off. But in this case (of a column type construction) , the soil composition and relative natural compaction determines the base hole depths and diameters,,, in this case 6 ft. deep over all, with the southwest corner at 8 ft, all 36 inch diameter holes for concrete and column base

[hubcapsc]

the soil composition and relative natural compaction determines the base hole depths

Here in the upstate we have "South Carolina Red Clay"... compressive
strength similar to concrete...

-Mike "all our topsoil got washed into the Atlantic ocean by our farming methods..."

[Glennwillow]

Hi Kev,

Cool! Sounds fascinating!

Our son married a horse woman, and they live just 3/4 of a mile down the road. So we have dealt with horses for the last 16 years.

- Glenn

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

Hi Kev,

Cool! Sounds fascinating!

Our son married a horse woman, and they live just 3/4 of a mile down the road. So we have dealt with horses for the last 16 years.

- Glenn

Thanks Glenn yes it is an interesting project.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by hubcapsc

the soil composition and relative natural compaction determines the base hole depths

Here in the upstate we have "South Carolina Red Clay"... compressive
strength similar to concrete...

-Mike "all our topsoil got washed into the Atlantic ocean by our farming methods..."

Ha! maybe the same kinda clay as Georgia ? I am thinking of the song by Shawn Mullins "Catoosa County"

[Lkristians]

WOW! First of all, I couldn't imagine undertaking a project like this. You guys amazing and gifted!
Second of all, the beautiful blue sky in the photos are phenomenal!
Great stuff!
LarryK.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Lkristians

WOW! First of all, I couldn't imagine undertaking a project like this. You guys amazing and gifted!
Second of all, the beautiful blue sky in the photos are phenomenal!
Great stuff!
LarryK.

Well thanks, it's really not all that amazing (organizationally speaking) given I was in construction most of my adult life and ended up being a foreman and project manager on some fairly big multimillion dollar homes . So it is really more like anybody doing what they have experience at in their job for 40 years. Just a bit bigger footprint and requiring some bigger and specialized machinery which is why we contracted the major portions out.