Our New Barn , In Picture Series. Enjoy!

[USNative]

Part 6, here are pics of the 100 amp underground service wires (conduit on the left) coming from the office to the barn. The wire on the ground is the bury phone line, I still have to hook it up yet. And then the two fences and the painted shed. The first pictures show the service wires source at the office building. Picture number 3 shows the high spot on the ground where the service wires and phone line was buried. Then the breaker box and raceway at the barn.

 

[USNative]

Part7, These pics show the Lighting, the first finished stall ( 4 left to paint). 5 stalls total, each with there own lights. Then we have 6 sets of lights down the middle of the barn for plenty of light. Then the wiring and lighting in the tack room and then the chairs we got for the barn. The tack room is going to be finished with Ceder trim and it will look great when we're done with it. Still a lot to do yet but we're making good progress. The earlier pics in this thread show the ugly overhead power line going to the old hanger building , as you can see now that eyesore has been eliminated. All underground now. Oh, I did the insulation inside the tack room last night but haven't takin' the pictures of that yet.

Enjoy!

 

[USNative]

Part 8, Here are pics of the insulation in the tack room and some pics of the outside lights.

 

[North West Farmer]

USNative

I am very impressed with your new barn and the facilities you have installed.

We put up a new shop building a few years ago, that happens to look a lot like your structure, metal with white roof over red sides. Bldg. is 105ft. by 36ft.. In our case we started with a 200amp service, but ours is a shop with the usual, welding, lathe, cut off saws etc., so a lot of power is needed.

Based on my experience, you almost can't go too big on your electric feed. I wish I had gone bigger and run the three phase in from the irrigation service as well. At first power was not an issue, but over time, as you add equipment, the demand seems to creep up.

Ended up installing a solar system on the roof that back feeds into the farm electrical system and then into the local grid. We have been very satisified with our outcome, but could always use more electric power.

You have done great job. My only recommendation would be to increase your power input if the opportunity comes along and the price of the upgrade is right. Keep up the very good work.

Nick, North West Farmer

 

[USNative]

Thanks Northwest Farmer, the 100amp service does pretty well with our barn but I think 200amp would be about right for our intended usages. I don't plan on using any high powered tools in the barn as I have a shop building for that kind of thing but the problem with running the 100amps is that I am limited to how many things I can run at the same time. It runs everything currently in the barn fine but if I were to need to run multiple water heaters for horses for example, along with what's already being used I am afraid I would start tripping breakers. But at least we will be able to get by until we upgrade. I am just glad to have it all done and having the main things we need for the time being up and running. It is adequate for the main necessities. That solar power you are talking abut sounds pretty nice. I may look into that later as another option as well.

 

[EddieWalker]

You're doing a first class job. Something to be truly proud of. Thank you for sharing your pics and progress!!!

Eddie

 

[North West Farmer]

USNative,

I attempted to determine if you had run your underground power in conduit of if it is direct buried, but I was unable to tell from the pictures. A very close friend of mine is an electrician and he convinced me, many years ago, to put all underground services in oversized conduit so it is possible to add to, or upgrade a service, simply by pulling the new wire in and thus avoiding new excavation to make service changes. He also recommended placing a seperate empty conduit on the other side of the ditch, with a pull line in it so a telephone line or data line of some type could be pulled in at a later date without more digging.

Over the years, his recommendations have come in handy a number of times when I have made service changes between facilities. In the pictures your ground appeared to be plenty rocky and keeping excavation to a minimum is probably pretty desireable.

That was the only other item that came to mind. Your new building is something to be proud of. I just thought I would mention the conduit recommendation because I know how glad I have been that a service had been installed in conduit when considering making service changes.

 

[USNative]

USNative,

I attempted to determine if you had run your underground power in conduit or if it is direct buried, but I was unable to tell from the pictures. A very close friend of mine is an electrician and he convinced me, many years ago, to put all underground services in oversized conduit so it is possible to add to, or upgrade a service, simply by pulling the new wire in and thus avoiding new excavation to make service changes. He also recommended placing a seperate empty conduit on the other side of the ditch, with a pull line in it so a telephone line or data line of some type could be pulled in at a later date without more digging.

Over the years, his recommendations have come in handy a number of times when I have made service changes between facilities. In the pictures your ground appeared to be plenty rocky and keeping excavation to a minimum is probably pretty desireable.

That was the only other item that came to mind. Your new building is something to be proud of. I just thought I would mention the conduit recommendation because I know how glad I have been that a service had been installed in conduit when considering making service changes.

The line I used is 2-2-2-4 Aluminum Direct bury service line however I used 1 1/4" Conduit to protect the wiring even more. You can see the conduit coming clear up from the ground to the box both at the office and the barn in my pics. If you look on post#31 in the thread on picture#2 you will see my new service lines in the conduit on the left closest to the cement slab.

The other lines that are showing to the right of my buried conduit that go into the small piece of conduit up to the box are the existing 100amp feed to the office and that is what I spliced into at the box there to get the 100amps to the barn. Those lines are direct bury line without conduit and was run underground from the main service box to the office. If it were me I would have used conduit on those lines as well but the previous owner wanted to go cheaper I would guess.

The wire laying on the ground on the far right in the pic is the direct bury phone line that I bought from the phone company to bury along with my service lines. I opted not to use conduit on that line but it is buried the same depth as the service lines and is separated about 18inches from them to avoid any electrical interference. I still have to connect it to the phone box at the office but I already have it ready to go on the barn side.

I didn't run any empty conduit in the trench but it is a good idea for sure if a person thinks he will need to add something later. We wanted power and phone to our barn so that is all we chose to put in the trench. If we were to go to 200amp service later it would be permanent but we would have to trench from a whole different location so to me it was not necessary to do anything else other than get the power and phone to the barn from this trench. In the future when we do a permanent service trench I will do exactly what your electrician friend recommends. Hope this helps. :thumbsup:

And by the way, you mentioned that our ground looks plenty rocky, well you got that right ! My tractor post hole digger is useless in this ground (can't get down even 6"). I have to hire out our digging work. New Tractor with backhoe or Skid Steer maybe??? LOL

 

[USNative]

You're doing a first class job. Something to be truly proud of. Thank you for sharing your pics and progress!!!

Eddie

Your Welcome Eddie, thanks and keep checking back as I am getting ready to add more in the near future. :thumbsup:

 

[USNative]

I'm making a correction on the size of our barn. I said in my first post on this thread that the size was 90'X65'. I made a mistake on that, it is 96'X60'. Just thought I would correct that boo boo since I just caught it.

Also I have finished all the trim work, door framing, new door handle and top insulation and cap on the tack room and almost have another stall painted. We are also starting in on painting the inside of the tack room. I have installed half of the inner walls on it and will be working on the rest of it maybe tomorrow.

I will be posting up some more pics of our progress shortly and hope all will enjoy them. I am going to catch a few hours of sleep then I am going to be back at it again. Trying to get this project done before to long as winter will be upon us soon.

Part 9 coming soon guys! I think your gonna like what you see. We are very happy with the way it's going so far. :thumbsup: