We built our horse barn over 3 years ago (and by we I mean that “we” paid for it and hired someone to do it). We did a lot of the finishing work on it ourselves however!
I learned a lot during the process so I wanted to share my biggest takeaway lessons with you all.
If you are planning to build a barn, I hope some of this advice can be helpful. Read on for the 7 lessons I learned after building a barn:
1. Hire someone who knows what they are doing
If you are not experienced with building, I highly suggest hiring someone who knows what they are doing. We chose a local pole barn builder and were very happy with our decision. Not only was it easy for them to get to our property, but they knew the details of neighborhood and requirements for building here.
I didn’t have to worry about permits and inspections because someone else was responsible for that. There were also specific building requirements that I would not have known about, so I am really happy I used someone experienced in the area.
I love a good DIY, but building a barn may be better left to the professionals. If you know what you’re doing, more power to you!
2. Plan, think, and then plan some more
I wanted to build a barn since we moved to our property. However, we spent several years thinking and planning what we wanted. We took 5 years to proceed with building our barn.
I find it really helpful to picture putting the barn in a specific place, changing the area, the size of the barn, etc depending on what works best in my mind.
We have a very cool property but there were no great places for the horses to live when we moved in. They stayed in our bigger barn (which could be rideable without the horses inside it). I wanted them to get sunshine and live outside but there was insufficient shelter everywhere else.
We are also located on a very hilly property so planning the best way to locate a barn and not spend an arm and leg on moving dirt around was very important in our situation.
3. Location matters
There are so many things to consider when deciding where to put your barn. How far is it from the house? What topography (elevation differences) does your property have? Do you want to see your barn or pastures from your house? Which direction do storms come from? Where will shadows on the north side of the barn be in the winter? Are there water and electricity hookups already installed somewhere on your property?
Being in Colorado, the north side of our buildings does not melt for so much longer than the other sides that get sun hitting them. Therefore, it mattered how I situated my barn so I knew where snow and ice would build up and not melt.
If you are just keeping your own horses, it might be easier to put the barn closer to the house. If you are building a barn for boarding, you might want the barn as far away as possible from your house so you aren’t seeing the daily commotion.
I spent years visualizing my barn in different places and thinking about the pros and cons of different locations.
My barn location was finalized by the following decisions:
- I wanted to see the paddocks off the barn from the house
- I didn’t want to be super close to the house, but still within view
- Our property is incredibly hilly, so I chose a spot that was on the hill opposite the house, but that could be leveled, with not too steep paddocks off the barn
- Didn’t want the stall (with paddocks) doors to open to the west – that is the direction we get the most bad weather from and where the wind blows the strongest
4. Dirt Matters
Grading, filling in holes and filling in water or electrical lines are all super important when building a barn. We discussed our eventual barn hopes with our builder at least a year before going through with it and he came and graded the pad for the barn so it had time to settle and then they could finalize it after it had gotten wet and settled over the previous year.
Our dirt is very full of clay, so we ended up putting road base (crushed concrete) onto the paddock areas. It did have a bit of foreign material so we used a magnet while placing it and picked out anything not concrete that we saw. We also put sand over the top of the road base to make it softer for the horses. This has done very well in the mud and snow. We’ve only had to touch it up one time in the last 1.5 years.
This spring we got a lot of rain, so several of the posts have sunken dirt around them (and they were installed more than 3 years ago). So plan ahead for that to happen and have dirt to fill back in as needed. It’s also helpful not to make the sides of the barn or posts inaccessible to be able to fill in as needed.
On the subject of dirt, make sure you use gutters if you can afford them. Heavy rain or snow will quickly move the grading on the sides of your barn which can lead to wind, water or snow going in the sides or bottom of the barn. We added gutters to our barn and I don’t regret it one bit.
5. Consider electricity
Sometimes electricity installation is out of your budget, and that is ok! But if you live in a cold climate or want to be able to work in the barn in the dark, electricity is super helpful! In cold climates, you’ll need water heaters to keep your horse’s water thawed.
We recently finished out the remainder of the stalls in our barn and we couldn’t understand why we didn’t cut wood and build the doors in the barn the first time, as it was way easier. Then we realized we took about 6 months to install the water and electricity so we didn’t have a way to operate the saw in the barn when we did our first stall and door install!
I had an idea to put my outlets with water heaters on their own light switch because I wanted to be able to turn them on and off as needed. My builder suggested that I just put each of them on their own breaker and could flip the breaker as needed. This has saved me time, money and headache because I don’t run the heaters all day. Most times that it is chilly out, I need the heaters on just a couple hours a day to melt the ice and then they are good for the day. Occasionally, in the super cold weather I have to run them for 10-12 hrs a day but I have an easy central location to turn them on or off.
I HIGHLY suggest doing something like this to make it easy to operate outlets or heaters. This can save you so much money. I also am afraid of running heaters 24/7 for the fire risk so I like being able to run the heaters for a couple hours then know they have the power shut off.
6. Don’t underestimate the power of the sun.
The warmth of the sun is very powerful, and you will find that the direction your barn faces, and the side of the barn will affect the snow and ice build up. If you live somewhere warm or without winter, this likely won’t affect you as much. You’ll quickly learn that it takes a lot longer to melt snow on the north side of your barn or any edges that the sun doesn’t hit.
I did consider the sun when building our barn, but the north side of the barn definitely gets way less sun, and therefore keeps mud and ice for a LOT longer than any other side of the barn.
7. Build the biggest barn you can afford
I believe I wrote about this in my post about what you need to consider before building a barn. But I will add that you should build the biggest barn you can afford, *that also fits your property and location.
The reason I say this is that you will never be sad you built a bigger barn. HOWEVER, you will regret it if you can’t afford it!
I also think it is important to build your barn to fit your property. I don’t have any flat space other than where we already have an arena, so we needed to build into the hill to place a barn. It would have cost us thousands and thousands of dollars to do more dirt work. It is also more expensive to build a wider barn rather than longer. Therefore, you should determine your ideal stall and aisle size and then build the biggest barn you can comfortably afford.
I don’t have any notable regrets from building our barn. Of course, I’d take a bigger barn, but I don’t need more horses, and I don’t need to spend the extra money on a bigger barn!
I hope some of my advice and lessons will help you with your barn building!
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