# The honey house that almost wasn't.



## alleyyooper

In the spring of 2006 Michigan passed a bill knowern as the honey house bill. Basicly it says if I want to sell honey any place but my front door step or to a whole saler I have to meet a bunch of rules.
To me they don't make any real sence of any thing just raise cost. 
Like if I sell my honey to people who come to the house it is fine. But if I were to sell to those same people at a farmers market it isn't fine.

 More bitching and then I will get right at us building the honey house.
We did a lot of research on the cheapest way to build and decided a pole style building was the way to go. Went to many lumber yards and pole style building out lets and found a place 128 miles away would swll us the 24'x24' building $1800 cheaper and deliver it than any one local would. We bought it andf it was delivered as promised.
THE BITCH NOw STARTS!!!
Went to get a building permit, You need a drawing of the building lady says. Go home dig thru the building paper work and find the blue print and drawing. Back to the permit office, fill out all the paper work and go home to wait for the permits OK.
Next morning we get a call we can not get a permit till the dept of water ways is contacted and we get a permit from them since we have a creek running thru our property. 
Got to that dept and explain we want to build a pole barn on the oppsite side of the hill that the creek is on. We live on the top of a hill. On one side is the creek and on the other side is where we wanted to build.
So the racket was we pay $97.00 for said permit and we can reapply with blessings for that building permit.
We then get a call the permit can't be issued as our drawing showes the pole building to close to the garage. We go out and decide we will move the building away from the grarage the required distance. Go back int to town and reapply once again. Get a call the next morning we can not get the permit be cause we are in voliation of the set back requirements.
Go back home look over our property and say OK we will put the honey house in the front yard, away from the creek still away from the grarage and the property lines. go back to town and reapply.
Next morning the phone rings with the dreaded news the permit has been denied once again. No note n tha app at why this time. 
I go in there and demand to talk to the head person and am raiseing all kinds of H3ll about it. 
Permit was denied because I had not put in the drawing how deep I was going to set the poles for the building. 
I totally came un glued and told them they would hear from my laywer latter that day as they are the ones who set the rules as to how deep the hole have to be and how big as well as all the other rules and they never said we had to show their guide lines in our drawings and frankly I was tired of their crapp and It was now time for my laywer to take them to court and get some type of ruleing one way or another can I build my building or not. 
The laywer was the magic word. I got my permit to build instantly.

Even the inspector was nice to the wife when he came to inspect. I refused to deal with them any longer.

Drilling the way over sized holes, 14" around and 48 inches deep required for 6"x8" poles.



















First post set.










 Al


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## alleyyooper

We bought the kit with one entrance door and no windows. We bought pella brand windows locally cheaper than we could get them in a kit. I found the beautiful door setting out for the trash man and inspecting it decided the only reason was a pet ahd scratched it and the home being sold got a new door rather than try to fix the old one.



















morning of day 3 My inlaws show up to help work on it,with out being asked.





































 Al


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## Simpleprestige

So pretty much before you even mentioned it I knew you lived in Michigan.

About 12 years ago we had a nice little rectangular parcel of 5 acres with our nice 2800sq ft ranch home on it. We decided that we wanted to put a pole barn up in the back of the property. So of course we went to the state....:devil: 

The problem was that we wanted the pitch of the roof on our 32'x48' building to match the pitch on our house. AGAINST THE LAW. Apparently certain angles are against the building code in that area because it doesn't look good. Keep in mind that first of all, it isn't gonna look good if it doesn't match the house. And second of all, we had to drive on 5miles of dirt roads to get to our house and once we were there we had a grand total of 2 F-ing people who could see it unless they walked right up to it.

So began our application process. If we had known what a ***** it was gonna be we woulda just built a different pitch. We went to state, payed like $100 just to have our claim heard, then they told us that they didn't see a problem with our claim, but to accept our claim we needed to pay another $250 

Two weeks later they passed an ordinance stating that basically said that if you wanted to bend the rules, you had to pay $250 up front and they still won't accept your claim, no matter what.


GOTTA LOVE MICHIGAN DON'T YOU????


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## Live Oak

Nice looking building Al. As a matter of fact I am considering something like that but have also been looking at the buildings you can buy and have trucked in. I just don't have enough space for my "STUFF". :argh:

I'm pretty fortunate in that we don't have much in the way of building codes or permit requirments especially living on a farm. I hate bureaucracy. :dazed:

It doesn't take long for the property tax assessor to find what you have built and raise your property tax assessment though. #[email protected]$:


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## alleyyooper

The rules for pole type buildings are mostly a county by county thing in Michigan. For example in 1998 My folks wanted a pole barn on the farm Osceola county. 
They had to go to the county seat (Reed City) fill out a form on the building type and size (24'x52'). They were given a sheet that told them how deep the holes had to be, the pill size at the bottom of the holes and the required sno load trusses required. The sheet also told them that they needed to call for an inspection when the holes were finished before setting any poles.
Since it was for farm use no fee was asked for.
2002 Kare and I decide we are going to build a 24x24 pole barn with a loft to be my work shop on our property in Delta county on Big Bay DeNoc. Since we didn't have any buildings there we had to have a perk test and do a septic permit. took a week for the county to come do the perk tewst and issue a septic permit, cost $75.00.
We then could apply for the building permit $50.00. When we applied we got a sheet as to what was required, inspections to be done at what stages. Did take some doing getting them to understand we were not doing a trussed roof, sno load thing.
Intresting thing is no special permit was required even though we are right on the bay.
I have made it our cabin and no longer take the travel trailer up there. When and if we move there once the house is built it will become my work shop. 



















I have heard some people talking at sportsman club that some counties even want you to do a building permit for this type of building.










 Al


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## Live Oak

What kind if any insulation did you use? Did you pour a concrete pad for a floor? 

I am considering something similar to your building but want to substitute cedar poles for the treated 6 x 6's

Looks like a great fall back position in the event of SHTF.


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## alleyyooper

"What kind if any insulation did you use?" 
In the cabin and honey house both we used the pink syrafoum 1 1/2 thick stuff.

"id you pour a concrete pad for a floor?"

For the honey house I poured a concrete slab 5 inches thick. Foe trhe cabin I smothed out the sand floor laid treated 2x6's down on edge then used treated ply as the floor.

 Al


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## howierd3866

looking good..down here in Fla a pole barn is a pole barn...dirt flooring only and no sides are you need is a drawning of the lay out of the property and where it going anything else is not a pole barn and lots of pain the A$$


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## Live Oak

You do REAL nice work AL! That is one heck of a building for $1,800. Can I talk you into building one for me?


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## chrpmaster

Randy I think he said it was $1800 cheaper though I am curious what the final bill is going to be. I would love to build one of these but its not in the budget right now. 

I am also curious about the red cement blocks. What are they for and why are they red? Do you just like the color or is there some purpose to painting them?

Keep us updated on your progress Al. I love watching other people work! 

Andy


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## alleyyooper

Correct we saved $1800 on the basic building kit cost by driving a couple hours to a place with a reputation of under cutting nearly every ones cost on pole buildings and thats even figureing in the delivery cost. 
Total bill is not in yet as the building is not finished that way we want yet. I still need to build the divider wall inside, install the second sink, Finish off the ceiling and install all the lighting.
But the basic kit which only included one service door was rounded off at $2900.00. We bought 5 Pella windows @ $55.00 each and because I never could get that service door that came with it to fit right I bought a new service door for $75.00. Stain was $160.00 for two 5 gallon cans of the green and 2 one gallon cans of the brown trim stain was $10.00 OOPS stuff. Gravel cement and the mixer were $438.00.

Red concrete blocks cost us 25 cents each. For some reason that is the color that the local wal mart chose to paint them for use in their garden center set up one year. They always sell them at the end of the season CHEAP. They also sell the land scape timpers CHEAP too and they were green that year. 
We use them in the bee yards to set the hives on. Notice the far right lower corner of the first picture.



















Finished out side.



















 Al


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## Morgan

Whats all that white stuff in the last two pictures, surely you dont have any of that this early.


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## Simpleprestige

god i hope not cuz im in west mi and im sweating


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## chrpmaster

Al it looks like a great pole barn. What kind of siding and roofing is on it? The first set of pics looked like steel but then you mentioned the stain so I was wondering if it was wood.

$2900 for a 24 x 24 building seems pretty good to me. I built a 20 x 16 pole barn about seven years ago. I used lots of scrounged wood and still had around $2000 in it. I used wood siding that looks like Al's and am sorry I did. Now I need to repaint again and wish I had put up steel siding or something that doesn't need painting. I planned on expanding it to 20 x 32 sometime in the future and plan on putting vinyl siding on it to match the house.

Andy


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## alleyyooper

Lets see, OH that white stuff is a heavy frost last November. Frost is measured in inches, snow is measured in feet.

You won't be sweating to much longer with the cold front going thru today. Honey isn't flowing to good the last couple days. I have been placeing a heat lamp by the extractor outlet to help the flow.


Building is T1-11 sided with Bher stain which we find works great and is easy to restain after 20 some years. Roof is steel, I'll never do another shingle roof even if the shingle company offered to pay me to do it.
Steel On the farms barn was installed in 1939 stuff is still on there. The house on the other hand had shingles installed in 1961, again in 1979 and again in 1996. Next time it will be steel.

 Al


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## Simpleprestige

Yep, I just put up a 12ft by 15ft shelter for the horses and it is T1-11 sided with a metal roof. Came out as solid as I could ask for.

For the roof frame TSC has metal frames that are made to attach to corral panels and we just improvised. Roof frame itself weighs about 300lbs. It has 4x6 posts on 12 foot square and a 3 ft overhang in the front. 1/2 inch plywood kick wall on the inside. 

Total cost was less than $1000


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