Barn Pros(?) Review
I bought the 24x36 Pioneer plan from Barn Pros. I am very handy in construction ( built a house, decks, remodeling, etc) therefore I did not hire a contractor to do the work.
My requirement was that the structure could sit on a ground level "deck" supported by versalams. In my presales discussions I was assured that that would be possible, so I ordered the kit and plans. When I received the plans, the foundation required the 12 10"x12"x26' upright beams be sunk 3-4' into concrete pads and that I have 4' frost walls at two opposing corners. During their scheduled follow up call with the salesman and engineer they told me to ignore that part and proceed as discussed. I asked the engineer how to secure the posts to the deck and he told me to use Simpson ties.
After excavation and installing 12 4' ready cast pylons and building the deck (think about the work, time, and money involved), I could not find the the appropriate ties so I asked the engineer for a suggestion. Now he says, you can't use them and they have to be sunk into concrete per the plans. Wow! So they where either lying to me or incompetent, either of which is unacceptable.
I called BS and sent the emails to their management. After a conference call that was not optimistic they said they would confer with their engineers and get back to me. After a week or so they got back to me and said no, I have to follow the plans. They admitted fault, probably since I had proof in writing, but I had to demand compensation for their mistake. They laughingly offered me $1500 (escavator, pylons, decking, labor) but I was able to get them up to $3000 which was not even close to the wasted material and labor...not mention I had to undue all of that and start over. And beyond the waste, following their plan added tremendous cost to the project that I did not budget for.
Further along into the building of the barn, I came across several problems with the drawings. Several areas where just not readable i.e. Intersecting lines that should be hidden were not...try making sense of that. Three drawings needed to be cleaned up and resent. My son in law is in grad school for architecture. He brought a copy of my plan to school for his professor to review. His assessment was that those drawings would not pass Architecture 101.
Additionally, I required a higher snow and wind load, so some of my wood dimensions needed to be increased. Yet on the drawings they called for the smaller dimensions. Apparently they are working from a template and update it based upon the required loads, but "missed" a few of them. Shoddy architecture.
Then, for one example of many, there are dozens of short uprights that hold the purlins in place. They came precut but I noticed that they sent me 2x8s instead of 2x12s. I called the engineer and he said don't worry about it, use the 2x8s. Really? Not believing that bs, I had to purchase 2x12s and cut them all myself. If 2x8s are acceptable why does the plan call for 12s? His response was either incompetence, being cheap, or a cya that a mistake was made. All unacceptable.
To summarize:
- Lying and/or incompetence presales
- Unwilling to fully compensate for their mistake
- Poor drawings
- Wrong material supplied
- Lastly, through all this, all the sales rep could do was nag me for pictures. Clearly an inability to empathize for a poorly handled customer. (Hey, we screwed you through this whole process, but would you send me pictures so we can advertise them?)
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