Barns - what would you do different?

[horsinaround]

I started with a 36 X 48 Barn/shop. The shop folks (me) and the horse folks always encroached on eachothers space and made messes. The dust from the animals was always getting on everything that I wanted clean...

I moved and started over. Now I have a 30X40 shop and a 52X88 barn... it keeps things in the shop a lot cleaner. Would be nice to have both of them bigger. I am thinking about putting a big lean to on the side of the barn to keep all the equipment in.

On the barn, we went 14 feet to the bottom of the trusses and 14 foot aisles. The thing that helped me the most was walking through EVERY barn I could for a year and talking to lots of people on what they liked and didn't like about it. One thing to do different is put bird net up when you build it. Otherwise, three years down the line your barn will be filled with birds, and the white stuff they leave will be on everything.

 

[dave1949]

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, I've got a quadrille pad that I'm starting to lay out things with, and the space does seem to go very quickly. I'm trying to save space by avoiding interior aisles and hallways (at least in the animal housing department) by giving each room an outside door (probably a dutch door).

Another way to economize, and I may do this with some items, is to keep things like the rotary cutter under a shed roofed area off the side of the barn. I know I want the tractor itself in the barn, but certain implements can be under cover, but not inside, you think?

Kurt

I think a side shed is fine if you enclose the ends and have a good overhang on the open side. This will keep the building and what is parked under the shed roof protected from the weather.

Not that I am an expert on keeping animals by any means, but I think the barn should be designed to minimize your time and labor required to tend your stock. I would make enough room to run a small tractor to any area of the barn holding stock. Think about your feed storage too.
Dave.

 

[scgargoyle]

I'm planning on going with barnplans, too. I like their plans. In the termite-infested southeast, I'm planning on going up 2' with concrete, then building my wood walls on top of that. I also agree that your planned size sounds small. I was once told that an outbuilding should be 3 times bigger than you could possibly imagine needing, and it will be almost big enough!

 

[chrisdvorak]

for all that you are planning on doing i would make it at least 2x bigger

 

[whistlepig]

Make it higher. Mine is 10'. Should have been 14' plus. I also have a 2 story barn. But lower level is less than 8'. Not high enough to store tractor with ROP up.

I agree with ronjhall. I made my last barn high enough to get the tractor in with the ROPS up. It didn't cost all that much more.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I would have made ours bigger and taller. It is a 40x64 split barn. The low side is 16x64 and we have 9x8 overhead doors on both ends and store some 3pt implements in there as well as the ATV, lawn mower and two of the tractors. The high side is 24x64 and we store one tractor in there all the time, some times there are three tractors stored up there. The baler is always stored up there also as is another lawn mower and 90% of our construction supplies. We set shelves up the walls on the outside and on the divider wall. We also have two man doors on the high side and two 16'x10' over head doors. We have a loft over the low side that has fairly easy access from the high side giving us a lot of extra storage for ladders and supplies. We used translucent panels on the top 2' on both long walls for light and during the day that is all the light you need as there are no windows or lights in there yet.

We have materials stored in the old barn that this one has replaced, our garage in town and materials and more of my farm equipment in my barn at my house. We will be building another barn soon that will be considerably taller. Most likely 17' inside height. I need at least 12' high doors to be able to get loaded hay wagons inside and my harvester. Currently I store the harvester in my barn but it takes up all of the main bay and just barely fits in so its a hassle to walk around. The new barn would allow me to put a lot more of my equipment inside and clear out our garage in town so we can sell the property.

I do not think you can ever have too much floor space or height in a barn. If you want to have a heated work shop you can always put a ceiling in that area and close it up so your not trying to heat a huge building. I would like to build our next barn 40'x100' clear span. Ideally it would have two 16wx14h doors on both ends as well as a man door on both ends. This way I could pull equipment in without having to worry about what is on the side walls. I would use the building to stack hay in also and if I have room left over sell storage space. But if I get all my equipment inside there will not be much room left for hay but then again I don't have to store too much hay as I sell most everything I bale immediately.

I would say figure out what size barn you would like to build then double the width and length. Well double the length at least as that is usually easier then doubling the width depending on the type of building you will put up. I have a thread on here somewhere from when I put up our barn. I will try to find it as I am curious when that was

 

[sal64]

i would build one twice as big .

 

[rootytoot]

Great comments, especially the parts about separating the shop and animal dust and the need to get machine access to clean out pens. I did some thinking, and have concluded my original size was way, way too small. I have an old 40x50 barn now, and it is pretty full of junk before I even start to think about putting the new functions in.