# Barn Help (flooring, drainage, etc)



## thechris83 (Mar 3, 2015)

Hello everyone, awesome looking forum you have here! Seems like some very knowledgeable people here, glad I was able to join!

Anyways...hopefully some of you might be able to help us out with our situation here. I'll give a little history or whatever first. My father/family built a barn here around 30-35 or so years ago. Its 30'x40' , with 4 10x10 stalls on each side and the rest is the middle walkway (and a hay loft over all but maybe 20' of the walkway). 

In its early years they used all the stalls...and as time went on only around 4 or so were used for a while and the others turned into storage/etc. In recent years we've had an issue with some flooding in the barn (mainly the unused half) when there's a heavy rain or snow melting or whatever. While it sucked that this happened it wasn't too big of a deal as we didn't use the stalls that flooded. Fast forward to the end of 2014, we now have all 7 stalls with horses and then our feed/storage stall. Now its to a point where we can't have this happening. That topped with my dad is getting up there in age and its rough on him to handling flooding and even cleaning the stalls. Currently all the stalls are just basic dirt floors...5 of then have rubber mats in them and the other 2 don't (though we plan on getting them). During the warm months (we live in Ohio) they are always outside except for when they are fed (twice a day). In the winter they are usually in overnight and let out in the late morning and brought in by mid evening or so (this can vary depending on the weather of course). 

Now I do not know how it all looked when it was first done (as I wasn't born yet)...obviously there was better drainage/etc it seems (inside and outside the barn). But its getting to a point that the stall floors (especially in the stalls that flood or retain more urine) they're sinking down and not too level in some areas and so on (and it seems filling in the holes/dips/etc with dirt does nothing). Personally if it was up to me and we had the time/money/etc...I would love to build a whole new barn...make it bigger (since we now have bigger horses from when the barn was original built) and do whatever it takes to make the floor/drainage/etc so its not an issue and easy to clean. But that would cost more money than we could probably afford. So we got to talking and we figured maybe we can somehow redo the floors to make then drain better and not sink down and easy to clean. Along with putting a barrier wall behind the barn to help with the flooding (as that's where the water comes in from generally).

The first thought was concrete...but as far as drainage/etc...I'm not sure...some might day do a drain pipe system below and that could work...if we can find a good enough drain "cap" so none of the poop/etc goes down the drain and only the urine. The other side of that coin is where exactly do we run the drain pipes to? The depth we'd have to dig down to, to be able to do this the pipes would be well underground and we'd have to dig up most of our yard and other places to get an outlet for them. I've seen some websites that have some fancy systems that lets the urine/etc drain through it and such...but as far as what to have below that to help with drainage seems to be a big debate from site to site.

So I got to thinking...I need to find some people who have barns with good drainage or that have built barns with this and get some ideas/input/etc before we make a decision and such...so thats why I came here. Feel free to ask me any questions you might need and such...I'll answer everything the best I can. Any help/ideas/etc would be greatly appreciated at this point. Thanks in advance!


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## natisha (Jan 11, 2011)

Do grading outside the barn to divert water, then go from there with other plans.
A wall won't move water, only gravity will.


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

The ground around the barn has to be graded down lower than the barn floor so the water runs away naturally. If you can't do that you might be able to dig a drainage ditch all around the sides where it floods and fill it with gravel so the water has some place easier to go than into the barn
The only other thing I can think of to do would be to raise the barn floor by adding a concrete pad instead of the dirt floor.


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## BigNickMontana (Aug 5, 2013)

It sounds to me like you need to look into installing a french drain. 

When you start experiencing that kind of water retention in the soil it means you have drainage issues.


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## thechris83 (Mar 3, 2015)

I appreciate the replies so far. I've found out that back when he built the barn the little bit of land that is right behind the barn (before the hill) used to be a lot lower years ago...but with how water/mud/etc can flow down the hillside (plus probably some use poop) its gotten higher than the barn.

Our land is currently somewhat close to this crappy drawing:










I've been saying for the last couple years we need to first of all move our fence so the horses cannot get to the area right behind the barn. Then from there do something about drainage...and dig it back out and go from there. Maybe adding in a french drain could be an option too.

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Anyways...I guess I must not have highlighted the main question I had and such...the barn stall floors. And the drainage inside (not just for any flooding but urine/etc) and recommended floor base (concrete, dirt, other newer technology out there, etc).

With all the stalls now being used and such now...we're trying to improve things overall, drainage, ease to clean, etc...but are not 100% sure the best option for this.


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## stevenson (Sep 12, 2011)

you need to divert the water away from the barn on the outside first.
CHeck your roof for leaks,
flooring.. you could do the french drain with gravel over the top ,then sand, then dirt, then stall mats and bedding. You could find the ag lime to keep the urine smell down or other type of product, then the dirt. You will need to pack or tamp the dirt down so that it is 'solid'
Make sure the flooring inside is higher than the dirt outside.


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