I’m not a builder, a construction engineer, a handyman or a carpenter.

Garage, formerly in a Box, provided some protection from the elements, but a more permanent structure was needed.

I needed some permanent shelter in my woods. Although the original strategy had been to buy a Quonset Hut, and hire some local men to build it for me, I ended up rejecting that strategy.

I had a number of reasons, but the main reason was that I am not qualified to serve as the general contractor of this project. There were probably 100 ways I could have screwed up the building, and more than half of those would be serious mistakes.

I tried locating a local builder with experience in Quonset Huts, by looking for ads in the local papers, and speaking with the local Farm Bureau. But not being from the area, I really didn’t know who I could trust to do a good job with this. In the meantime, while looking around the area, I noticed that there weren’t many Quonset Huts, but lots of pole buildings. I decided to hunt for a company that would both provide the materials, and also build the structure. I turned to the internet.

I won’t claim to have done an exhaustive search. But here are some of the companies I looked at and my impressions:

NUCOR Building Systems: The website promoted only very large buildings. I didn’t see a single garage. I didn’t think they’d be interested in my small potatoes construction project.

Greiner Buildings: They made garages, but they were primarily a supplier, not a builder. They indicated that in special circumstances, they could be persuaded, at a significant cost, to become the general contractor, but I got the impression they would rather not. Fine.
Heritage Building Systems: They manufacture kits that others will construct. This wasn’t what I needed.

FBi Buildings: They actually do the building, but most of their construction seemed to be large buildings, and only a little was for garages. Also, they were located far enough away to be considered remote. Finally, when I web-chatted with them, I found they were not helpful in answering my questions, but instead they kept trying to get me to speak to a salesman. I had an uneasy feeling with them.

Morton Buildings: These buildings enjoy an excellent reputation for quality (and relatively high price), and they have a building center close to the woods. I called them and spoke to a very nice person who sent me a package of material (including a DVD…very slick), and promised that a salesperson would call me within the next two days.

Oddly (I thought), she added that if I didn’t hear from the salesman within 2 days, I was to call her back. I should have guessed right then that Morton Buildings might have an issue with customer service. Two days passed…no call from the salesman. I was about to call the nice Morton Woman back, when I stopped to think about this.

It shouldn’t be my job to call them when their salesman fails to call me. I’m the customer. They should be doing their job and not bothering me to be their quality control person. If they were concerned that the salesperson might not call me, the Morton Woman should have called the salesperson to make sure that I had been contacted.

Sigh.

I decided not to call them back. By the way, to this day (months later), their salesman has never called me, and I haven’t heard anything from the nice Morton woman either. So much for closing the loop.

Tru-Bilt Building Company: I hadn’t heard of this company, but it had good reviews on the internet. They are located about an hour from the woods, and seemed to have a lot of experience with both smaller buildings (like mine), and larger commercial buildings (unlike mine, but it gave me confidence that large companies would trust these guys.) I called them, and the salesman called me back within 2 hours.

He seemed genuinely interested in building a structure that would meet my needs. He had helpful suggestions, and saved me from overspending on certain areas. I liked him, and asked him to prepare a bid. Three days later, we met on the site, to go over my plans.

I had found a builder I liked, who was relatively close to the woods, who had years of experience in constructing buildings like mine, who seemed interested in me and my needs, with an outstanding response time to my calls and questions. I decided to proceed.