Pole Building Ideas

Barn

• Pole building is a low-cost alternative form of architecture, appropriate for barns and other agricultural buildings. You can build a simple pole barn by setting four posts into the ground, connecting them with horizontal beams, then building a roof over the top and filling in the walls. A barn that doesn't require insulation or a constructed floor is more simple and less expensive to build than a residential house. Pole barns are often constructed with no walls at all, consisting only of a roof supported by poles.

Sloped Site

• Pole construction is appropriate for people who want to build a house on a steep or sloped site. Building with a conventional foundation in a situation like this can get very expensive, because the foundation walls either have to be stepped or have to be much taller on the lower side of the slope. By installing poles at strategic points on the hill, the builder can essentially "hang" a house from them. Poles on a hillside also offer the opportunity to create rooms at different heights, contouring the house to the slope of the hill and creating an interesting interior architectural environment.

Stilt House

• Pole buildings have no basements and only contact the ground at the points where the poles support the building. This makes them ideal for building in locations where the ground is wet or where flooding is frequent. The wetness may increase the rate at which the poles rot, but this problem can be alleviated by using pressure-treated poles or by mounting the poles on concrete piers. In tropical environments with many dangerous insects and animals, a house on stilts is easier to protect from infestation.

Unusual Shapes

• Pole building design frees the builder to create interior environments that are not necessarily based on squares like conventional houses. By laying out the poles in hexagonal or octagonal configurations, you can create unusual rooms. Customizing a pole house to a particular building site allows you to take advantage of solar angles, specific views and optimum entry and exit locations. It is also a simple matter to make multi-leveled houses by attaching the floors of the rooms at different heights on the poles.