Pole Barn sizing for workshop and placement

[CloverKnollFarms]

Great building, inside and out. Curious about what kind of light fixtures you used that appear to work so well? I used 4 each 500 watt halogens because they were only $10 each, but if I ever forget to turn them off, in a few days my electric bill will...

I used (8) Hyperlight Hero 150W 21,000 lumen LED high bay lights. The total shipped was $610. Theyare amazing day or night. One of those photos was at night and there are virtually no shadows. I’m very pleased.

 

[jmc]

The current garage is 20x25 and is pretty much tightly packed with all my woodworking eqpt and a zero turn. There is literally no standing space on the woodworking side of things. So I am set on a pole barn . My initial thoughts were 24x32x10 and slowly I became convinced it should be 24x40x12. Some more posts from TBN later I am now at 30x40x14. Here is a list of my current eqpt.

1. Powermatic 66 Table Saw
2. Delta 8" Jointer
3. Grizzly 15" Planer
4. Powermatic Bandsaw
5. Full size craftsman drill press
6. Table top drill press with stand/drawers
7. Disc Sander / Osc Spindle Sander combo
8. Miter saw station
9. Hand tool woodworking workbench with vise - full size

All of the above is cramped into a 10x25 space. The remaining 10x25 space has

1. 50" Zero Turn
2. Bunch of lawn gas equipment, blower, trimmer, chainsaw
3. Standing space

Equipment in my future
1. CUT . wife dot gov gave the a-ok
2. mini lathe for woodworking
3. Milling machine
4. Chop saw and/or horizontal-vertical bandsaw
5. Welder
6. Welding table

Give all these is a 30x40x14 sufficient for future needs as well. I have ample space on my property and have 3 locations scooted out

View attachment 855742

The purple block is closest to my house and near my current garage. A lot( i mean a lot) of fill dirt would need to be used to level that area. The other two blocks, black and blue are relatively flat.

I will be having someone pour the concrete and install the brackets for the laminated pole posts and then do the rest of heavy lifting myself(with that CUT hopefully).


TIA
DC

I ended up at 53x36x14. Contractor (Morton) said it doesn't add much cost to make the walls higher and at 14', they can drive a cement truck inside to reach the hard to reach sections. Otherwise, they would have to water down the mix or bring in an expensive cement pumper.

Tall walls might let you build in a little mezzanine for bulky storage.

If you get a tractor, you're going to have attachments, which tend to accumulate over time.

 

[dear.chap]

My garage is 30x40 and the barn at my other farm is 30x40. It's a good size for what they do, but it was easy to fill them up and I still need to build a proper workshop sometime in the future. I can pull the cars out of my garage and have plenty of room to do stuff, but I'm moving things around all the time. I've been in a few 40x60 buildings, and they where HUGE!!! I think the biggest issue is if you are going to park anything in there, or will it be dedicated to just your tools? Once you put vehicles in a shop, all the open space is gone!!!

In addition to my tools a zero turn mower and a CUT for sure. If I still have my strength them maybe a car lift to work on my cars.

 

[steve tym]

When I build mine, 16' walls so I can put in 14' doors. Then you can pull in any truck, and with barns this size, that's a real possibility. Also great for resale value. If it's gonna be big enough to pull a tractor trailer into, you better be able to pull one in.

 

[wolc123]

Sizing mine was pretty easy because it was a replacement for a couple of 36’ x 46’ x 16’ post and beam barns that my great great grandfather had put up in the 1880’s. Unfortunately, he had built them on poorly drained ground and the foundations and roofs were failing simultaneously.

I would have liked to have saved them for nostalgic reasons, but that would have cost several times more than putting up a new metal building.

I used to use one of those old barns, which had never been painted, mostly to store my firewood. During the tear down and new construction, I stacked my firewood outside on pallets, and covered the top with tarps. That was a major pain that I hope to never have to repeat.

High winds were tough on those tarps, and shoveling snow off of them to fetch wood in the winter was horrible. I had been spoiled by having my firewood in that old barn for so many years.

After clearing the firewood out of the back barn, I filled it with tractors and tools (after “thinning the herd” a little). Next, I dismantled the front barn to make room for the new one, saving all of the timbers and boards that were not rotted.

The new metal Stockade building pole barn I put up is 36’ x 50’ x 12’ with (2) 10 x 25’ porches. I used posts, beams, and boards salvaged from the old barns to build shops and a loft inside the new one, and a 24 face cord capacity woodshed behind the back porch.

I was planning on using that back porch for firewood storage, but they sent along a bunch of extra green metal cover sheets when they shipped the building from Ohio. I used that left over metal to roof the woodshed I built out back, using more recovered wood from the old barns. With the completion of that woodshed, I finally have plenty of shop space and covered storage.

I’m currently enclosing the back porch with more of that old recovered barnwood. By using so much of that old wood, I was able to keep the feel of my great grandads old barns, for just a fraction of the cost that it would have taken to repair them properly. The modern building is also one heck of a lot nicer to work in.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

It will never be big enough.

Like the idea about taller. Mine is 12 ft high, door too low to get camper in. But I built it myself, and 12 ft high was about all I could handle by myself, especially getting the roof trusses up there.

I really like the way R&R builders on youtube builds their buildings, especially the foundation and post brackets. If I have a do over, I will not put wood posts in the ground. I will have some sort of concrete wall or piers in the ground, and posts on top of them.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

I built 12' walls to accommodate a 10' door for a cabbed CUT. No semi is going to reside in a 40x60 barn with a side entry.

We have clay loam and plenty of rain, so we did use gutters, snow guards, and trenched the downspouts 100+ feet down grade from the barn to reduce water near the foundation. Not to mention we built it on the highest point on that half of the property.

 

[wolc123]

It will never be big enough.

Like the idea about taller. Mine is 12 ft high, door too low to get camper in. But I built it myself, and 12 ft high was about all I could handle by myself, especially getting the roof trusses up there.

I really like the way R&R builders on youtube builds their buildings, especially the foundation and post brackets. If I have a do over, I will not put wood posts in the ground. I will have some sort of concrete wall or piers in the ground, and posts on top of them.

I can get my camper (with AC unit on top) into my 12 footer, thru a 10 x 10 overhead door. The key was not doing a concrete floor inside the whole thing (I only put in concrete for the shops under the loft). I’ve got about a 6” gap below that 10 ft door, so that I can back the camper in with my 2wd Silverado 2500.

I couldn’t do that with my 4x4 Silverado, which was considerably taller. It don’t hardly snow here any more in the winter, so I gave that 4 x 4 to my father in law. He still gets some snow up in the mountains where he lives, so he uses that for plowing.

I don’t mind having the gap under the door on that side of the barn. The wind rarely blows from that direction.

 

[Alan46]

You sound JUST LIKE ME, two years ago. Virtually same space, and equipment. I went 40x60. I’d not go smaller. 30x40 would be TIGHT.

72” ZTR
12’ trailer
48hp CUT
Workbench
Saws
Dust collector
Storage for beekeeping suppplies
ATV
Trail mower
Cultipacker
ETC…
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Wow! That is quite the setup bro!

We have a 48x48 and I would be embarrassed to show inside photos of mine!

 

[buckeyefarmer]

My camper just barely doesn’t fit a 10x10 door. Would fit in 11 ft high. But, no room for it anyways. It is now stuffed full.