# Building barn from scratch?



## RunSlideStop (Apr 21, 2012)

Who here has built their own barn? Anyone build without the help of one of the many "pre-designed" barn companies?

Wondering if a nice 3 or 4 stall California style barn can be built sturdy and cheaper than the 25-30k quoted prices on many sites. 

What was your greatest expense? Stalls? Roofing? Paving?

Cheers,
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ETA: If it isn't too personal, for those who did build their own barn, did you have a loan, or did you pay cash, or mix, ?


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

We built a new simple pole barn/shelter (28'x30') last year by ourselves from scratch. We never stall our mares, so we made the one side (10'x30) the shelter and we'll be putting in a loft at some point. I'm sure you're looking at something bigger, but to give you an idea of costs, the materials cost was just over $4000. Lumber cost was roughly half, a little over $1000 for the metal siding, $900 for the metal roofing, and a non trivial amount for all the bolts and screws. BTW, around here if you want something built (not pre-manufactured) the going rate is about 1/3 materials, 2/3 labor.


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## RunSlideStop (Apr 21, 2012)

Beautiful barn! Something about that size would be along the lines of what I am looking at. 

Did you buy all materials new? Did you finance, or pay out of pocket (if you don't mind)? I imagine a 5-7k loan could be paid off fairly quickly and cheaply. 

I wonder if finding functioning, salvagable scrap metal and such would work as well?

Not to cut corners - structural integrity and longevity is important; curious though if this can be achieved through recycling.
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## Ladytrails (Jul 28, 2010)

We built ours from scratch. 30x50 barn with 4 stalls, feed room, tack room, grooming area, and hay storage area. 7x50 overhangs on both long sides for loafing/shade and shelter from the weather. All stalls have dutch doors and we have split 10' sliders on the 30' ends, plus a 10' slider on one long wall for ease of unloading hay and feed and external personnel door into tack room. Cement floors in tack, feed and grooming area plus patio outside tack room door for viewing arena. EquiTerr flooring in stalls. Priefert stalls. 

It cost ~$20K to build in 2005 just for the barn before cement and finishing stalls/feed/tack rooms. We were quoted $~30 K without all the dutch doors and extra sliders and windows in feed/tack rooms. Hubby said he could build me what I wanted if we did it ourselves, for the price we had in mind. We saved enough to buy him a front loader for his tractor.  Cement, Priefert, EquiTerr, flooring, lumber, etc. for finishing was probably another $5K.


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## Koolio (Apr 7, 2010)

Nice, PaintHorseMares!! What equipment did you use to put in your poles? Also, it looks like you built the roof from the poles, and didn't use trusses. We are also looking to build a barn of a similar size and like you, don't plan to keep the horses in it on a regular basis. I must show hubby your set up!


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## RunSlideStop (Apr 21, 2012)

Ladytrails, what would you say was your biggest expense? Did you use any pre-fab bits for the structure (ie trusses, stall boxes, etc?)

I would be looking to build a 3 or 4 stall "shed row" type with 5-7ft overhang on both sides, and tack/feed storage adjacent (think L-shape, foot of L being tack/feed). Probably dutch doors, paved out to match length of overhang for equipment storage on backside of barn, and some kind of drainage system in stalls. 

Any advice on stall drain systems? 

If no pavement (might be better in the long run), what kind of drainage would be best? Assuming stall floors are packed/level dirt with mats. 

Great info! Thanks!

Cheers,
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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

RunSlideStop said:


> Did you buy all materials new?


We bought everything new. My wife and I were rushing (as much as possible having to work full time) to get it done before the winter. If we had more time, we would have saved a lot by buying rough sawn lumber directly from the lumber mill instead of having to buy from a lumber yard, but we didn't have the time to let green cut lumber dry enough.



> Did you finance, or pay out of pocket (if you don't mind)? I imagine a 5-7k loan could be paid off fairly quickly and cheaply.


We paid cash out of pocket. 



> I wonder if finding functioning, salvagable scrap metal and such would work as well?


We did look around for roofing from old barns, but a lot of it was in poor shape and some of the barns were a little too rickety for even me to feel comfortable being on the roof. We did use the trolleys and rails from an old barn for the barn door hardware which probably saved $100 or so.

Not to cut corners - structural integrity and longevity is important; curious though if this can be achieved through recycling.
_Posted via Mobile Device_[/QUOTE]


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## Ladytrails (Jul 28, 2010)

We bought the steel siding and trim from Sutherland's Lumber, worked with their salesman to figure out what we needed. Steel was the biggest expense, next was lumber and next was the Priefert stall wall & door frames. 

We have our horses outdoors unless they're sick, so heavy use of the stalls wasn't expected. We dug deep holes in each stall center, leveled with a slight slope and filled with gravel and sand for drainage. I don't have any worthwhile advice for drain systems, except that I love the EquiTerr for durability but would put mats over them to keep muck from getting packed into the honeycombs. 

We also put one drain near in-barn hydrant, which is designed to carry away gray water from a sink in the feedroom. This one actually drains outside to pasture.


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

Koolio said:


> Nice, PaintHorseMares!! What equipment did you use to put in your poles? Also, it looks like you built the roof from the poles, and didn't use trusses. We are also looking to build a barn of a similar size and like you, don't plan to keep the horses in it on a regular basis. I must show hubby your set up!


This was a real DIY, 'on the cheap' effort. We dug all the holes by hand. We do have a laser level to set and level the poles with which helped a lot. I wanted a nice, simple design, so I picked the 6x6 poles, 2x12 rafters bolted to them, and 2x6 purlins. It's a lot simpler to build (IMHO) than building (or buying prebuilt) trusses and having to get them up without equipment to lift them into place. There are lots of free plans for agricultural buildings available on a number of the big agg university web sites and I basically combined ideas from 2 plans that I liked. Also, I liked the fact that this simple design was expandable. As we built it, you can continue to expand in 16'x28' sections to make it as long as you want.

Here is boss mare, Mandy, supervising our inside work...


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