Pole barn kit or built for you?

What a pole barn kit includes

A pole barn kit is the material for the building’s shell, delivered to your site: posts, trusses, lumber for the girts and purlins, steel roofing and siding, trim and fasteners, often with doors and a set of plans. What’s in the package varies a lot from seller to seller, so read the list line by line.

Ask whether the plans are engineered for your county’s snow and wind loads, whether the truss drawings are sealed, and whether doors, windows, insulation, a condensation barrier and post brackets or anchors are included. Some sellers arrange delivery and installation through a local crew; others ship the materials and leave the rest to you. When you compare two kits of the same size, check the post size and treatment, the truss spacing, the panel gauge and the fastener type, because each one can differ.

We don’t sell kits; from our office in Dover, DE, we draw, permit and build complete buildings across Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore, and this guide is meant to help you compare the two paths fairly.

What a kit leaves out

Nearly everything that happens before the first post goes in, and the labor after. This is the part a kit price doesn’t show:

• Drawings for your site and code: a plot plan, a post layout and the details your county asks for
• The permit application, corrections and the back-and-forth with the county or town
• Site prep: clearing, grading, a stone pad, drainage and the driveway
• A sediment and erosion control plan if you disturb 5,000 square feet or more
• Utility locates before anyone digs
• Concrete: footings, piers or collars, and the slab
• Labor: a crew that has set posts, raised trusses and hung steel before
• Equipment: an auger, a lift or telehandler, scaffolding and fall protection
• Inspections, and fixing anything that doesn’t pass
• Electrical and plumbing permits, which in Kent County come from the state, not the county
• A workmanship warranty, since a kit’s warranty covers the materials, not the way they were put together

Why the drawings have to fit your county

Local design rules are where generic plans fall short. Kent County’s code sets a design wind speed of 115 mph, and its post-frame rules call for a cleat or other means on every post to resist uplift and footings at least 40 inches below grade. A kit drawn for another state may show neither.

The permit drawings themselves are specific, too. Kent County asks for a plot plan, construction plans and the manufacturer’s certification for each engineered part, plus a post layout that shows every post and its spacing, the door and window locations and the header sizes.

Sussex County asks for a complete, scaled plan set: a footing plan with every post hole, a floor plan with header sizes, a cross section showing post embedment, girts, trusses and purlins, and elevations, with sealed truss specifications on site at the framing inspection. A generic kit plan may not cover all of that. If a kit’s plans don’t show what your county asks for, they have to be revised or supplemented before the permit is issued, and arranging that falls to you.

Building it yourself in Delaware and Maryland

You can build your own pole barn, but the permit, the inspections and the licensing rules still apply, and they reach further than many people expect.

In Delaware, anyone you pay to do the work, even just to stand up your kit, needs a state contractor’s license from the Division of Revenue, and some towns, such as Middletown and Townsend, add their own contractor licensing. Electrical work is inspected by licensed third-party agencies. An owner-occupant can get a homeowner electrical permit only after an inspection agency stamps the plan, and only when a house is already on the lot or under construction.

In Maryland, a detached garage or pole barn built for an existing home counts as home improvement work, so the contractor needs a Maryland Home Improvement Commission license. Maryland law also requires a Miss Utility ticket before any excavation, post holes included, opened at least three business days before digging. Wherever you build, call 811 and have the lines marked before the auger comes out.

Then come the inspections. Sussex County inspects footings before concrete is placed and checks a pole building’s headers before any wall covering goes on, so your schedule has to leave room for both, and for fixing anything that fails. Plan the truss set, too: lifting and bracing trusses is the dangerous part of the job, so line up the equipment and the help before the trusses arrive. Our Delaware permit guide walks through each county’s steps.

When a kit can make sense

A kit can work well when the building is small and simple, you have the skills, the help, the equipment and the time, and you’re comfortable owning the permit and the inspections. That usually means a plain building with standard wall height and few openings; experience, or experienced help, plus a rented auger and lift; a farm building on land that qualifies for an agricultural exemption, where the paperwork is lighter; and no deadline, so weather and learning time don’t matter.

It makes less sense for a garage on a residential lot with tight setbacks, a building with tall sidewalls or wide clear spans, anything with living space, or when your time is worth more than the difference. To compare honestly, add the concrete, equipment rental, site work, permit drawings and your own hours to the kit price, then put it next to a builder’s quote for the same building. Our guide to pole barn cost explains what moves the number.

Some owners split the difference: they buy a kit and hire a licensed local crew to put it up, or they have a builder put up the shell and finish the inside themselves. Either way, settle in writing who pulls the permit, who answers to the inspector and who stands behind each part of the work.

What a builder like Pole Buildings Unlimited handles

We take the whole job: drawings, permits, the build and the inspections, with one company answerable for all of it. Because the plans the county reviews are the plans our crews build from, a change made at plan review shows up on the job site instead of getting lost between a seller, a crew and the county. You make the final payment after the county’s final inspection.

It starts with our designers, who turn what you tell us into drawings and an organized, easy-to-read quote. You can sketch the building first in our 3D designer. We manage the permits; for a home, permitting usually takes 3 to 5 months, depending on the county. Our crews set the posts, raise the frame and close it in, and a project manager keeps you posted along the way. Every building we put up carries our 5-year workmanship warranty, and financing through HFS Financial offers home-improvement loans with a soft credit check and no home equity needed.

One customer, Jamie, put the permit side plainly in his video: “I underestimated all of the rules and regulations it would take to get this project done.” His 60 by 40 building was done in about three months from a January start. That was one customer’s experience; every timeline depends on the county and the building. Our process page walks through each step.

Kit vs. builder checklist

Use this to compare a kit quote with a builder’s quote for the same building. Every line marked “you” is a job, and a cost, that the kit price doesn’t include. If you’ve already priced a kit, send us its size, wall height and doors and we’ll quote the same building, built.