Building a pole barn, but what to do about doors?

[drw]

I've been planning this barn for the last year. I am building an exact clone of the barn that SteelDust built several years ago.

It's going to be a 36x36 barn with aloft above the center aisle. Concrete slab for the entire floor.

Now I'm contemplating the doors. I want to have several 4' wide dutch doors for the animals to go in and out, and for the big doors in the front and back, I want to use sliding doors.

My big question here is: do I build the doors myself, or buy them prefabricated? I've looked at my options online and can't actually find any sliding doors for sale, so at this point I'm guessing my option is to build them myself. That's not a problem but I want to make sure I'm not overlooking a better option.

As for the 4' wide dutch doors, is it better to buy these mailorder or build them yourself?

 

[s219]

I don't know what kinds of pre-fab doors would be available, but I can tell you there is a ton of hardware for barn door track systems. There are nearly unlimited possibilities there. You should be able to hang any style door you want to build as a slider.

 

[drw]

Thanks for your reply.

I have seen all the hardware and I have that pretty well covered. The only difficulty there is choosing from all the great options!

But the doors themselves is the big question...

 

[Fishon]

I built a barn last year and put Overhead Drum doors in the front and the back, best thing you can do for yourself.

 

[Gizmo2]

I built a barn last year and put Overhead Drum doors in the front and the back, best thing you can do for yourself.

Hold on there. New member, first post and only two pictures. What's the big idea? I need to see some more pictures of the inside of your building. Pole building with block base?

 

[BeezFun]

As for the 4' wide dutch doors, is it better to buy these mailorder or build them yourself?

I replaced the lower part of our dutch door with a hinged steel mesh door that I saw at the race track in the exercise stalls. I don't have a picture handy, but it has a cutout for the horses neck to rest in so they can get the whole top of their body out of the stall, but it's made of steel so it can resist all the crazy things horses do. It comes up higher on each side of the cutout to discourage jumping over the door. It's about 6" off the ground so even in the snow they open and close. They kind of have that rustic penitentiary look, but you could cover them with some kind of wood veneer and trim if you wanted to.

We had dutch doors, a combination of things made them impractical, the biggest one being the horses chew the bleep out of the lower door when the top is open, sometimes they try to jump over it, or lean against it and damage it. We also had problems with blowing and drifting snow, ice in front of the lower door freezing it shut or open, frost heaving the soil in front of the door, probably not issues where you are.

 

[Duffster]

I've been planning this barn for the last year. I am building an exact clone of the barn that SteelDust built several years ago.

It's going to be a 36x36 barn with aloft above the center aisle. Concrete slab for the entire floor.

Now I'm contemplating the doors. I want to have several 4' wide dutch doors for the animals to go in and out, and for the big doors in the front and back, I want to use sliding doors.

My big question here is: do I build the doors myself, or buy them prefabricated? I've looked at my options online and can't actually find any sliding doors for sale, so at this point I'm guessing my option is to build them myself. That's not a problem but I want to make sure I'm not overlooking a better option.

As for the 4' wide dutch doors, is it better to buy these mailorder or build them yourself?

Sliding doors are very simple to build. I would tally up the entire cost to build and compare to overhead doors. An overhead will nearly always be preferred to a slider.

If you do choose sliders consider putting them on the inside instead of the outside.

 

[drw]

Thanks for all this.

BeezFun, I hear what you're saying and if I was keeping horses I'd be taking those things into consideration. No horses here, though. This barn is for our milk cows and other smaller animals.

I strongly considered overhead doors and it does seem like that would be the best solution, but the issue is that it cuts into my headroom in the aisle because of the loft. The joists for the loft are 8 foot off the ground. Put a drum below that and you now have a bit less than 7 feet of head clearance. That doesn't seem like a great idea.

 

[BeezFun]

I strongly considered overhead doors and it does seem like that would be the best solution, but the issue is that it cuts into my headroom in the aisle because of the loft. The joists for the loft are 8 foot off the ground. Put a drum below that and you now have a bit less than 7 feet of head clearance. That doesn't seem like a great idea.

They make tracks that go straight up the wall instead of curving under the floor joists. If you have the space on the wall above the door opening, you could have the door go straight up. I prefer overheads to sliders, mostly because here in the winter sliders can become impossible to use.

 

[drw]

I contemplated this matter all morning, and I think I can do some small changes to my joists for the loft floor in order to accommodate a rollup door. Thus, I will use rollup doors (Janus 650, likely) and I think I'm going to be happy with that decision.

So, as for the other doors, I'm going with 4' wide dutch doors. There doesn't seem to be much of an industry for these doors out there, so I think I'll be stuck making them for myself.