So GD...

Any of you that have, or have had, quonset huts used as garages, workshops, your family dwelling and so forth -show me some pics and share your experiences.

Seems these buildings would be pretty neat if done properly, as a secondary (or even primary) structure if one were to build or rebuild on a nice little chunk of dirt somewhere.

Ideally, functioning as garage/shop connected with a large breezeway to a barn style home.

GO!

A.W.D.

They don't lend themselves to finishing out the inside very well, and the can be inefficient in use of space.

Friend of mine lived in one when we were in High school.  It was unique.

I've lived in quonset huts enough in 29 Palms to know they are horrible as a dwelling.

Giant trashcan. You can fit a lot of AKs in there....

Withstand winds up to 150 mph.  That said, I think you need a special insulation kit to insulate them or use structural foam insulation.  

In my area they hold up.  Even neighbors with steel roofs lose panels and my two nearest neighbors had to redo their roofs..

is that like a yurt?

We looked for years for 20-30 acre weekend getaway with an old beat up single wide on it. Our plan was to build a pole barn and park our RV under it. Enclose a screened area/cook shack and down the road a rustic bath. We planned on using the existing trailers power pole, well and septic to escape impact fees and use the trailer for storage. We gave up looking and bought a lake place instead.

Built this one, what would you like to know?

I remember that thread , good thread too

My experience with the Quonset hut is that they smell like ass.
















Back in the 70's it was our varsity football dressing room. I grew fond of the hut, not the ass.

LOL lived in them, worked in them.

My sibs went to school in them in Okinawa, no a/c, surrounded by sugar cane.  Can you imagine if they did that here in the states???

A buddy run his business out of one.  He had the exterior shot-creted 4 inches thick for added security and sprayed with 6 inches of insulating foam on the inside.  He makes it work for him without much problem.

Several empty ones around here.  I've thought about moving one to the farm for storage.

Guessing they would be a major PITA to move though.....

Why?

They are easy [a lot of work tho] to unbolt and reassemble...

Mark all parts...

For a  large building...

Storage against the wall is not much issue...

We do it with small and larger equipment and a room.


The highly insulated room in our Quonset, ---that has an interior  ceiling of 8'3" and 12 inch metal ceiling joists has a setback of ~4' to the base connector...  We use that area for storage of sheet material, etc... Very useful...


A Bridgeport milling machine with riser block sits about 2 feet out from the base.  Perfect!

I'm guessing the panels would be heavy as shit and not easily moved without a crane....especially the top of the arch.

I've removed panels in some huge grain tanks.  Panels were not very big but heavy as crap.

Lived in one when stationed in Thailand with 3 other guys. We had a momma-son that did all the work of keeping it clean. There were no interior walls, no insulation, no running water so there was no privacy and we used a community shower and toilet. The local temperature was comfortable so the temperature inside was liveable.

I was in my early 20s and it was okay back then, but I'm in my late 60s now and would not want to live like that again.

Each panel we installed weighs ~85 pounds and are ~10 feet long and ~ 2 feet wide [see picture].  They're the max gauge, 14.

The best way to disassemble is to take down the panels in groups of about 4 I would think... Or maybe one at a time.

I purchased a 35' 6000# telehandler to install, works great. I also had 2 man lifts and they are indispensable...

I got where I could place a partial arch assembly within a fraction of an inch and set it down on the previously installed arch.

My SO and two highly capable friends could erect an average of 3 arches a day.

Inside height our our Quonset is ~24 feet...


We installed them [pix above] by assembling 1 panel on one side on the ground and 2 on the opposite side [alternating] and assembling the other panels while hanging on the telehandler.

It would be a lot easier and faster to disassemble than to assemble, I think...

I'd use new quality hardware... [Special bolts and nuts]

Went to school in one in the Philippines in 1968...Did I say they were HOT as HELL?

The exterior treatment and insulated interior interest me. Along with different ways of customizing the interior space.

A.W.D.

Back in the late 70s, early 80s there were a few left in Kodiak. I lived in one briefly.

There was another one nearby and the landowner gave me the OK to salvage the flooring that was a BEAUTIFUL clear vertical grain wood of some sort that I forgot the type of. IIRC it was tongue and groove.

I pulled it out carefully an installed it into a room in someone's home as flooring. When it was done the room was beautiful. They used first class materials for simple throwaway things during WW2. Incredible!

I had the opportunity to do some woodworking with War Admiral's barnwood and I get what you're saying about reclaimed lumber.  The stuff they were using in WW2 is orders of magnitude better than new product today.

I think the grain lines per inch was probably 5-10x of what we use today.

These have been there awhile.  Probably from right after WW2.  

Might have to check around and see if the owners would give them away or sell them cheap.

Quonset buildings are not that expensive new...

An old one might not be worth messing with.

You can figure about $12-14 per square foot for the building shell... Lot's of suppliers, just Google...


There's a lot of other expenses finishing a complete installation...

I am mildly interested in this construction building type.  Subbed.

Used to hang in one WWII surplus

Is that in Gardner, co? ......looks like something you'd see in Gardner or Beulah

I've got a new style A model from us buildings that I built in highschool. It doesn't have the wasted space of a true quonset (straight vertical side walls). 30x36.

Next year i'm adding on to make it a 30x80 and do spray insulation inside as well as hvac.

The only thing I don't like is it's hard to seal the base. Once I found the right method and product it wasn't bad though. I wouldn't do one againt but I have it so its cheaper to expand than take down and replace with a regular shop.

Give U.S. Metal buildings your phone number and prepare for a bunch of assholes to call you from 3 different states constantly wanting your money without giving you any information.

and Glocks too

http://usbuildingsdirect.com/

There are a bunch of companies with similar names but these are the guys I used. I just got a quote a few months ago on a 30x44 to add to my 30x36.

They do the whole "I got an extra unit that someone ordered then backed out on, cut you a deal" stuff but I didn't get any extra calls.

What was the price on the 30x36

How much more for 30x80

Multiply 30 x length x $15 to estimate the current price...

I originally bought the 30x36 new but second hand in 2006 for 3,000. The guy bought it and read the instructions, figured out  you couldn't assemble it from the couch. I think he paid 3800.

I got prices on a 30x36 and a 30x44 5 months ago to use to add on to my current 30x36. It was around 6700 for the 30x36 and 8000 for the 30x44. Figure 6 bucks a square foot for the building, no labor or concrete.

usbuildingsdirect quoted me much less than 15 this year unless they screwed up the quote. I didn't buy it, i'm still saving. I can buy a real shop building with beams and r panel tin along with insulation for less than 15 bucks a foot.

Awesome!!!  I want one!

Did you erect the structure yourself? Approximate cost per square foot? Have you had any issues with the structure? Do you have any more pictures handy?

Already mentioned.

It's a heavy gauge metal, not the cheap noodly thickness a lot of folks use for small Quonset buildings.

Cost was abt $14 per sq ft for the bldg. It varies depending on how hard you negotiate and the complexity and size of the bldg.  Lightweight small Quonset style garage structures are less, but they are wimpy construction. No comparison to the one you see in the picture.

Structure is bullet proof if you install it correctly.

Sealing the base and quality OHD's are important if you want a building that is rain tight and vermin proof...


Ours is wonderful.


Don't believe the wasted storage space nonsense because of curved walls, space is easily used, I even park the telehandler ~4+ feet from the base and have room for Gorrilla racks inside that.  



All this said, these sort of bldg's aren't for everyone.

Unless you have a special reason for a tough bldg. [snow loads, winds, etc.] a conventional bldg. is likely a better choice.


The concrete work was elaborate and expensive. Not necessarily required.

There was a steep learning curve to the erection of mine, I was lucky to have the resource of my friends and my SO. Lot's of tricks no one will tell you, even the mfgr. We're highly analytical and technical so we managed to work through it.


My SO and I built a large highly insulated heavy metal framed free-standing room inside [doesn't touch the building for sound suppression] and the setback from the building base is less than 4 feet and the overall height of the room is ~9 feet 4 inches!

The walk-thru space between the room and the building is used effectively for storage.


For example, a big Bridgeport mill sits about 2 1/2 feet from the bldg. base,  like you would in an ordinary bldg...

A big Grob vertical bandsaw sits only about 1 1/2 feet from the bldg base, just like you'd situate it in an ordinary bldg...

We have the building efficiently arranged with 2 mini-excavators, skid steer, the very large room, solar equipment, machine shop, and countless other stuff...


I'm typing from the highly insulated room...  

Sounds like you have, what i'm trying to turn mine into next year.

I'm planning on spray foam insulation, a gun room, small office and bathroom. Half of the shop for my machine shop equipment and the other half for heavy equipment, big welding work, reloading, etc, etc.

What did you seal your base with?

We left mine unsealed for years (i was 15 when I built it so I really didn't know how to seal it ). I went back last year and used "hydro stop" which was similar to elastomeric roof compound in consistency. It used fiberish cloth strips in between coats like a fiberglass type process.

So far it works but we don't get much rain so who knows. You have more trees in your picture than my whole county can support with regular rainfall.

We had leaks during snows with it unsealed at the base connector.

There are usually 2 different types of base attachment.

Ours is a weldment with mating sections to bolt the arches to. The base connector is attached to the foundation with anchor bolts, 2 per arch.

The other way I have seen is to embed the arches in concrete.


We used a one part self-curing urethane sealant in tubes from concrete supply companies.. There is a 'runny' self-leveling viscosity and a normal high viscosity 'caulk'

We used both types as applicable and we jacked up the building slightly [at each arch progressively] to get clearance between the arch and base for the sealant to enter.


We also machined aluminum wedges to slip under the inside anchor bolt/base connector surface at the inner bolt to get a slight 'slope' so water runs off the base connector.


The sealant is now available in the box stores as concrete crack sealant ---Loctite PL S10 is one brand. We use it for all sorts of sealant and adhesive purposes.

Building is now sealed tight as a drum at the base. Dry as a bone.

There's something like 9000 bolts in it and it took a while to find the loose ones and get them sealed.


ETA, we also put down 2 fat beads of sealant when we first laid the base connector to prevent critters [insects]  from going under it.

Another thought-I didn't insulate the building... Just the interior room...

So far it's worked fine.

We did put a barrel stove in 2 years ago and use it sometimes.

Also, we put in a commercial Grainger ceiling fan  and that blows an amazing amount of heat down in the winter when the sun is out.

I've got another axial blower to blow warm air from the ceiling into the insulated room in the winter, controlled with a thermostat.


The concrete floor/ground thermal heat source keeps the insulated room above freezing almost all winter.  The foundation is insulated and we put perimeter insulation on the floor around most of the room to make a sort of thermal break in the concrete. There's walk surface on the foam insulation. It works according to IR thermometers...

The foundation has 2" foundation insulation all around on the outside.


During the summer we open the doors and let the bears wander in...