Help me Design Building for Tractors and Pickup

[Little Red Tractor]

My garage has two overhead doors on the gable end and a somewhat smaller one in the side near the back--a stroke of genius, in my book; I only wish I could claim the credit. You get varable angles of entrance/exit which has proved helpful in a few cases.

 

[Surshot]

I would use an architect's scale with scale paper. Layout the property, utilities, the building and use cutouts of the equipment to scale, fit everything in the building.
Dirt and a pole barn is cheap, but the constant dust and dirt is aggrivating. I poured a slab and had my barn moved onto it by pro movers.
Watch the doors, height and width, new equipment keeps changing in dimension. Do not make the door frames a structural part of the barn building’s framing. My new barn was made in such a way that I would have to tear the entire front off the barn to change a door size.
If you have hanging equipment, like an auger, do not forget the hoisting frame. A capped ridge vent lets out a lot of heat and does not allow rain in.
One of the best and most useful barn designs is the gambrel design, Gives you the advantage of a 2 story without all of the expense plus truss companies do make the trusses.

 

[davisarc]

When i was in engineering school, we were the first class in the brand new Engineering Building. So, new the furniture hadn’t arrived.

I was headed to the counselors office, and the secretaries cornered me, and asked how i would figure out where all the new furniture was supposed to go. And, I told them that’s I’d get a big copy of the floor plan drawings from teh Campus Architectecht’s office, then call the furniture manufacturer, and ask them for the scale cardboard cutouts of the furniture. Then just slide the little card board pieces around until things fit.

The two secretaries looked at each other, and informed me that all engineers think alike. They had gotten the same answer from all the profs, and most of teh students. I laughed and said, by the time they graduate they will all give you the same answer.

I told them that good engineers are inherently lazy. Not that we were afraid of hard work, because you don’t complete the degree without lots of hard work. But, we generally don’t work any harder than we have to. And, sliding a bunch of furniture around a room, is lots harder than sliding little cardboard furniture around on a scale drawing.

Good architects accomplishing something in the same way as good engineers, hmmmmmm, LOL!

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

My solution for that problem is a shipping container. Which isn't going to help the pickup. Maybe add a carport cover and the Decon method someone else described?

Both the tractor and the mule seen in my icon picture are stored in a hi-cap container 40'L x 9.5'H x 8'W with doors at each end and a pair of solar powered vents.

This doubles as secure storage as I don't live on the property where they are kept.

So far I haven't had any critter issues other than acquiring a pair of Border Collie blend puppies that were living under the container after some one dumped them on the property.

 

[hobie52]

Figure out how big you want it to be, then double that then, add 20% and it will still be to small. I put up a 32x48 with 3 10x10 overhead doors and now wish it was 40x80 and that it had 14' sidewalls. I did a concrete floor smooth interior walls and ceiling , installed 100 amp electric service and gas furnace, the wife said NO to AC.

 

[wolc123]

I put up a 36’ wide x 50’ long x 12’ tall metal sided and roofed building with (2) 10’ wide x 25’ long covered porches in 2018. Prior to that, I had kept all my “stuff” in (2) old 36’ wide x 46’ long x 16’ wall post and beam barns that my great great grandad had built in 1883.

Knowing how much room I had before, made sizing the new building relatively easy. I live way up north near the Canadian border and heat my house with wood in the winter. With those old barns, I had plenty of inside storage for firewood. Since taking them down, I have been storing that outside, on pallets and under tarps, which is not nearly as nice as it was having it inside of a building.

I had planned on using one of the 10 x 25 ft porches on new building for firewood storage, but I had too much other stuff that needed to be kept out of the weather. My new plan is to use some of the lumber, and wood posts and beams recovered from the last old barn that I took down, to add a 8 ft wide x 25’ long woodshed onto the back of the back porch, and enclosing that porch with salvaged barnwood.

I will roof that shed with green steel sheets that were used as protectors for the bundles of gray steel sheets that were shipped with the “Stockade” barn kit. The cost of that kit was $ 27k in 2018.

When that woodshed is complete, I should have plenty of inside storage. Most of the floor inside is gravel, except one porch has a concrete floor as does a 12 ft wide x 30 ft long interior area, under a loft. That area has a heated, enclosed, 20 ft long woodshop and a 10 ft long metal shop that is open to the interior.

For doors, I have (2) 9 ft wide x 8 ft tall overheads on the front (side doors don’t work well here in the winter with all the snow we get), a 10’ wide x 10 ft tall on the side (I use that to put my camper in over the winter and for my rops canopy tractor the rest of the year. I keep that tractor under the side porch in the winter, with the block heater plugged into an outlet switched from the house. There is also a 8 ft wide x 7 ft tall overhead door on the back and man doors on the back end and front side.

The 10 ft truss spacing on those Stockade buildings makes for lots of useful storage space up top of the loft that I made from lumber salvaged from my old barns.

Building this new barn has been a big project. I finally finished the wiring this past winter. I had been running everything off extension cords for a couple years, from a single 15 amp, 110 volt outlet. Now I have 240 volts and 45 amps out there.

So far, the new barn has worked out extremely well. I really like the gravel floors that I have over most of the interior, and I am thankful that I didn’t waste money on concrete for all of that area. No big deal when my old pickup truck or my antique Ford tractor drips a little oil, or my old boat leaks a little water from the live well, onto that gravel.

In three winters, I have not had too much mouse trouble. I have trapped 5 of 6, the last couple, using those little plastic folding traps, set on the floor in my wood shop. None have got into and made a mess in my old pickup, camper, boat, or tractor.

 

[wolc123]

The only thing that I would have changed on my new metal building, were it not for the proximity of my great great grandfathers last old wood barn, is the size of the porch on the left. The old wood barn was in horrible shape. It was well beyond saving without investing a small fortune. It was leaning towards the side porch location on the new barn. When it did fall, it landed within an inch of the 25 ft long porch. The extra 25 ft of the 50 ft long porch that I probably could have had for another $500, would have been demolished by that fall.

Eventually, after I enclose the back porch and build a woodshed on the back, I will have almost the same covered space that I would have had, with the longer side porch.

Sentimentally, I would have liked to have saved my great great granddad old barns. Financially, it didn’t make sense. The foundations and the roofs were failing. The new one is much nicer for equipment storage and for working in, and it cost less than half of what the needed repairs on the old ones would have. I still have the feel of those old barns (and some of the best parts of them) inside the new one.

When I get a little farther clearing the rubble of that old downed barn, I hope to find the crane trolley and hay-forks that were way up inside, under the peak of the roof. I can fondly remember, when I was a young kid, and helped grandad bring loose hay up into the loft with those forks.

My memories of being a teenager, after he got a baler, and stacking those heavy bales up in that hot loft in the summer are much less pleasant. Just the thought of that makes me think “good riddance” to that old barn.

The pilgrims never designed that old barn for the increased weight of baled bay. Stacking them bales up in that loft might have built up some strength in me, but it weakened that old barn and contributed to the damage that led to its destruction. I used the same 6” square hand-hewn beams under the loft of my new barn, but twice as many, cutting the spacing in half.

 

[JethroB]

Figure out how big you want it to be, then double that then, add 20% and it will still be to small. I put up a 32x48 with 3 10x10 overhead doors and now wish it was 40x80 and that it had 14' sidewalls. I did a concrete floor smooth interior walls and ceiling , installed 100 amp electric service and gas furnace, the wife said NO to AC.

On A/C, I installed a 4 ton heat pump in my red steel shop recently. Our southern summers and humidity are brutal along with me having no shade there. Plus the gnats.
The A/C works as well as expected given the only R-9 insulation. I won’t be hanging or processing meat in there. The remote app Ecobee thermostat is working well. Though I haven’t received my first electric bill yet.

 

[Yjmoose]

Here is a link to the building planner available through Menards

https://www.midwestmanufacturing.com/MidwestWebsite/web/buildingplanner/index.html

I found it to be very helpful when planning my building. It allows you to add items into your planned space, re-size them to your specifications and so forth. I do recommend using a computer and not a tablet to navigate through it.

Good luck with you building plans.

Yjmoose

 

[philnsherrylowe]

My solution for that problem is a shipping container. Which isn't going to help the pickup. Maybe add a carport cover and the Decon method someone else described?

Both the tractor and the mule seen in my icon picture are stored in a hi-cap container 40'L x 9.5'H x 8'W with doors at each end and a pair of solar powered vents.

This doubles as secure storage as I don't live on the property where they are kept.

So far I haven't had any critter issues other than acquiring a pair of Border Collie blend puppies that were living under the container after some one dumped them on the property.

Hello:
We are in Northwest Georgia and have considered purchasing a 40' shipping container to store our push mower, weed eaters, zero turn mower and Kubota tractor. Have read a couple of articles that advises against storing any type / amount of fuel in a storage container due to the high heat during summer due to risk of explosion. (even the small amount stored in fuel tank only)
Have you had any issues with this at all?
Before we purchase just want to see if this is working out for others and what type of ventilation will keep the temps at a safe level. Shipping container by far is the cheapest storage building we have found from research.

Thank you in advance for any insights, ideas or experience.