# DIY Horse Barn?



## Alexz7272 (Feb 13, 2014)

Hello, 

We are looking at building a 36 x 36 horse barn with 4 stalls 12 x 12 and the last 2 12 x 12 spaces as tack and/or a wash area. While looking at kits, they are seem so exuberant and are, well expensive. There is not way I could get 10k all together at one time (and that is a cheap one!) Has anyone every drawn up their own plans and built their own horse barn? We are planning to use a local lumber yard if we build it ourselves. We have family that will help and most all of the equipment needed. My S.O. is a mechanical and electrical engineer, so he can save some in those departments and help with that planning. Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated, thank you!


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

You need 13 trusses, 4:12 pitch, 32 wide and 24 inch overhang, 12 6 by 6 posts, 16 feet long. 12 bags of ready mix concrete.


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## hihobaron (Oct 5, 2015)

Hello.
Check with your local power company they may have used power poles they have taken out of service. 
They will work for the post in your pole barn. Trim to length with a chainsaw.
BTY: Tell the Power Company you are using them for landscaping timber.
They have to pay $$$ to dispose of them because they are considered Haz Mat waste. It is the preservatives it them but for your usage they will be just fine.
Another item find a steel building contractor ask to buy his "Cover Sheet Steel"
Left over steel from other buildings. Also scratch and dent stuff.
All they can do with it is sell for scrap steel price and the market there is way down right now. figure 1/4 -1/2 price of new steel.
You might have to put up a party color building but a few gallons of paint will take care of that.
You only need treated wood were there is ground contact.
Above that for purlins you can use rough sawn wood of any kind.
IF you can get the cross arms (wood)off old power poles they make great stall walls.

What kind of horses do you have?
I built a 30 X 40 barn with all of the above materials for my draft horses and Arabians. Used Standing stalls and only two box stalls,One for Stallion the other for foaling. This was in Wisconsin horse out in woodlot pasture all the time except in bad weather. Wash Stall was outside and a hitching rack made with power poles.
Feed chest (17 CU.FT) defunked chest freezer for grain,( handled about 1000 # of complete pelleted feed. Harness rack on end wall . With saddles below it.
High pitch roof for loft space ,but built in a 2 room apartment. 
Lived in it for 3 years
Hay storage was second building hung out over a steep hillside built with power poles for floor joist and decked with 2 " rough sawn oak from farm, Salvage pole barn steel for walls and roof.
Good for my 5800 # tractor and hay storage. Occasional horse stalls too.
BTY: This Whole construction project was put up with a old tractor ,draft horse power, and ran off grid with Propane gas Lighting,heating,refrigeration and 12 volt DC power. Y2K would not have affected me the way farm was set up.
Happy trails
hihobaron


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## goodhors (Sep 6, 2011)

Couple questions here. Do you have another place to store hay? Will barn have high sidewalls or only be 10-12ft high? What kind of horse use do you do? Will you REALLY use a wash rack inside? Where will you store the Misc. stuff of daily horse life? Things like grain, brushes, and I am going to say 12ft is NOT enough for tack storage.

My BIL is a barn builder, who told us our plan for a 36 x 40 ft barn was not big enough. We had 3 animals at the time. He said his experience was that folks built for what they had NOW, but always ended up getting more animals, equipment, so barn was not big enough almost as quick as it got built!! He listened to our plans, said to add 20ft more to the barn length, for 36 x 60ft. We had plans for 4 box stalls of 12x12ft. Tack room of 12x16ft, with all the other open space for carriage storage and hay.

As time progressed, he was right. The barn layout is still good, just wish we had gone to 14ft sidewalls for more hay storage. Always cheaper going up over floor footage. We have pulled out two of the box stalls to turn them into 4 tie stalls. We have added twice onto one side, kind of giant lean-to of two parts for parking truck and trailers under, carriages in one enclosed section. So I think barn is now about another 40ft wider, by 60ft long. If we buy something, some other item MUST go to keep things under cover.

Husband built the stalls from sawmill lumber, cheaper and in true, full inch measurments not having been planed smooth.

There are ways to save money, but you have to be careful so things are built strong and safely. We had BIL set the posts, frame and side the walls, roof with sheet metal. There is no way husband could have done that himself. We got things put together in the 'off' season when they were not busy with other jobs. The fill dirt had been purchased over a year or so, been rained and snowed on so the air was out, dirt had settled well, before building on it. I STRONGLY recommend raising the floor of barn, so it is not level with surrounding land. You need good drainage from the barn itself, want it above that other dirt in case of flooding, surprise storms with MUCH rain. Our barn has never flooded, even when we got more than 6" of rain in less than 8 hours, because we put in a 4ft high base layer of dirt first.

BIL rented the equipment to hang the trusses, drill the holes for posts, lift the metal sheets up high for walls and roof. He knew how to use such equipment, no one got hurt or injured during building. Husband did the final work himself, stall and tackroom walls, cement work for aisle, floors under hay storage. Probably close to a year and a half process once building started. We bought parts as we could afford them, no loans to build it. The animals we had were stalled in a small barn that came with the property, had warm place to go when brought in daily.

Our horse focus has changed in the many years since we built the barn, from mostly riding to mostly Driving. Needed more room for carriages, harness and new, larger horses in numbers. Husband likes driving Multiples not Singles, so we now own more horses than ever were needed for riding. They do ride also, but Driving is the main focus as our 'fun with horses' times. More horses means more hay to purchase and store for winter. More stalls to clean and storage for wood fiber bedding. LOTS of harness and tack for all those horses.

I do remember making a stupid statement way back, something along the lines of 4 box stalls being ALL the horse space we would EVER need! Who would ever need more than 4 horses?? Even with kids, that was one horse per person. Ha Ha, that sure came back to bite me!!

You need to write down all your goals with horses, possible other directions you might go with equines. Yeah, we drove way back then. But it was NOTHING like the fun of doing Combined Driving! Just was another 'something else to do with horse' then. We don't have an indoor arena, but may go driving out in the winter cold. Mostly horses goof off in winter. Work starts when weather breaks, getting them fit driving down the road. How you use your animals will change how you need to use the barn. We hose off or wash horses in the barn aisle, 12ft wide, no wash stall at all, not needed. We blow off sweaty horses with the vac, if they need drying in cold weather, cover them with cooler squares to pull sweat off until dry to turn outside again. No winter blankets, they wear all their hair. One older horse wears a rain sheet after temps drop below 30F, kind of works as a windbreaker for him. He doesn't get cold with it on. Doesn't seem to need a heavy blanket, just his windbreaker.

I strongly recommend getting the 14ft sidewalls, wish we had them. Otherwise the barn we built has worked out very well for our changing needs.


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## Kris in MI (May 30, 2002)

I did design my own barn: 36' x 48' with 6 12x12 stalls, a tack room and an 'equipment' (wheelbarrow, muck buckets, manure forks, etc) area. It also has a loft over the center aisle. My DH is a mechanical engineer who also has quite a bit of experience in construction (his father was a builder; we designed and built the home we currently live in); he drew the official blueprints and was instrumental in coming up with the materials list and technical know-how.

However, that barn is still not totally finished, years after we put up the shell. (We did all the labor ourselves)

Why? Because materials are not cheap. Mine is a monitor style pole building, with steel siding and steel roof. The lumber and steel cost us somewhere around $12k. Stall hardware and wood (boards for the walls, kickboards to protect the exterior steel) are not cheap either. Plus you need water and electricity run to your barn. Windows, if you want light and air flow. Cement in the aisle. Stall floors either excavated and then 'built' for drainage, or leveled and matted. Not cheap.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

A friend had a barn erected by Butler for less than what he could buy the materials for. How? Because the Butler building was engineered to use less materials. The trusses were stronger, but were spaced 8 feet apart instead of the common 4 foot spacing. Instead of treated 6 x 6 posts, they used 2x6s nailed together and spliced out of two pieces, treated boards on the bottom, standard boards on the upper. Instead of 2 x 12 at the top of the posts to hold the truss, they used 2x4s and set the truss into the top of the post.
When we build for ourselves, we buy materials retail and we tend to overbuild in an attempt to have it last. My barn has a concrete floor with rebar spaced 2 feet apart, both directions, trusses made with 2x 12 x 26 feet, insulation under the metal roof. $35,000 in materials.


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## redgate (Sep 18, 2008)

We've started using metal carports when in a pinch. They have solid steel frames with 4 ft. trusses and ribs, and if you order high enough, the sharp steel roofing is well out of the horses' reach. You can then attach siding of your choice to finish it out. You'd have to get a little creative on the stall sections inside, but sometimes the frame is the hardest part! We just built a "pole barn" essentially, but when we ran short of time, we ordered one of these carports. It has 9 ft high walls (I'd go taller for housing horses--this is for our driving equipment), 21x30 ft, under $5000. Granted ours was pretty basic, so door frames and such would cost a bit more. It's a thought though.


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## reubenT (Feb 28, 2012)

with a sawmill and a property full of trees I build all I want for the price of nails and roof. And for the roof I get the cutoff ends of the large orders for around half price. 3 ft wide painted steel. The colors are random but I don't care. Any kind of surplus or discarded materials that can be used to make a shelter would do it. If ya have to look fancy, might have to pay the fancy price to get the looks. I do not mind having a cheap barn and rusty trailer as long as the horse is quality. I got a good paso fino and she's a real nice ride.


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

I ended up ordering a kit from APB pole barns... It was cheaper to order from them, and have them deliver everything than it was to go to than local big box, or even mom and pop lumber yard and buy the materials I needed.. 

Building a building isn't cheap, unless you can source scrap material to build with, such as pointed out with old phone poles and local sawmill rough cuts..

You have to do the math too as to what your time is worth. It saved me a TON of time and effort to order a kit than it was to go find everything I needed and gather it... My time is worth more to me than a few hundred dollars saved, so that helped me decide the kit route was the most economical when you consider everything.


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## RLStewart (Sep 10, 2006)

My husband built our horse barn with the help of our Amish neighbor. It worked out well but was a lot of work and took some time. The neighbor knew how to build so could instruct my husband and also help him with the tricky parts. Then he would go back to his farming until we needed him again.  Our barn is 60' x 60' with the center 36' being two story with 12' lean-to's on each side. Now my husband is working on a two story garage and my BIL is assisting as needed. He swears he's never building anything bigger than a doghouse after this!


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