Barn door location?

[Oleozz]

I have three 9x7 doors on the front of my 30x40 building. I realized quickly that was a mistake, I have just now finished tearing out the middle of the side wall and built two sliding doors that will cover a 10 foot opening. You are smart for really thinking this out, door placement can be critical.

 

[EddieWalker]

That's pretty smart to place your tractor and impliments on the ground and see how they all fit!!! Have you also laid out a workbench and shelving? Put it all down and see how it fits. Than you can decide if you want doors on either end, or on the side.

One thing you might want to reconsider is keeping the tree that's close to your barn. Trees do more damage than good and sometimes just building close to one will kill it. If you remove it now, you'll never miss it and never have to worry about it!!!!

I have a 10x10 foot roll up door on my shop. It's big enough to drive anything in, but not so big as to be wasteful. I like my wall space on either side.

I'm also a really big fan of roll up doors. Some posters have mentioned slider doors. If you can, avoid them. No way to seal them, they come off their tracks and need allot of exterior wall to support them when you open them. The only advantage to one is it's cheap. Do yourself a favor and don't skimp on doors!!!

Eddie

 

[npaden]

I'm planning on the regular overhead doors. The ones like a regular garage door. Also planning on putting garage door openers on them.

From talking with people the problem with the roll up doors is that if you get a dent in them they won't roll up anymore and unless you get the really expensive ones they are hard to open and close. I've never had one though.

 

[BadDog]

Opinions are like a-holes... everyone has one. Here's mine:

Overhead doors suck. Why? Mechanisms bind or wear out. They get in the way of other things. They block overhead lighting options. Their hingles make them complicated and complicated things mean more things to break. Go for double sliders. They are cheaper as well.

Get one big double slider right in the center of the front and back of the building. You need to be able to drive through the building, trust me on that. If the tree is an issue, cut the freakin thing down and plant a new one! What, are you married to the tree?

Don't even bother with a people door. You can open a slider easily part way if you need to get in. If you *must* have a people door, build it right into the sliding door. Otherwise you're wasting wall space.

Spend money on good windows. You can't have enough of them. Make sure they open and have screens. You'll thank me later, when it's 100F and 100% humidity outside. Put windows on the sliding doors too.

Put geotex fabric underneath your gravel at the doors. This will ensure you'll never have ruts going in/out of the barn.

Make sure you have excellent drainage *away* from the building site. The last thing you need is a building you can't get into because it is surrounded by a mud pond, a building full of water, or worse: frost heave in the winter.

Spend money on eavestroughs, without them you are risking seepage into your building and it will be also covered in mud right after the first good rain.

Sorry if I sound a bit grouchy... it's been a long, nasty Friday...

 

[BB_TX]

My plan is to replace my roll ups with regular panel type garage doors with insulation. Several reasons. First the roll ups can't be insulated. So if heating or cooling is a consideration, think about that. Second, they do not seal well. They (at least mine) are made of corrugated metal that rides in a channel track on each side does not seal at all. And when down, there is a gap at the top of the door because the roll is now smaller. My door should have been mounted about a foot higher, but it was not long enough to do so. When the wind blows, it comes thru the sides and top as if nothing were there. After a heavy wind, my building is full of leaves. And because of the design, you can't put rubber molding around it to seal it. Third, if someone wanted in, they could push hard and push it out of the track and step thru. I caught the pull cord on my canopy and pulled it out of track. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif Fourth. Mine is heavy to raise. But I probably just need to add tension to the spring.

 

[npaden]

One thing I've learned from my various posts on this building is that it really is amazing how widely varied construction practices are from one part of the country to the next. The other thing I've learned is that we are blessed to have about the easiest building conditions of any.

One thing I don't understand is that several people are saying that I should put a door at each end. I don't understand why I would need to drive my tractor through the building instead of just backing it out the door? This would completely kill my idea of having a little shop type area in the back of the barn with the nice window looking over the canyon and my pretty tree! (The sad thing is that it is just a mesquite tree but people telling me to cut it down haven't lived out in West Texas! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif )

My local contractor also doesn't recommend the light panels either. Says they are prone to leaks and hail damage. I was just going to put in some shop lights.

Thanks for the input! Keep it coming!

 

[Joe1]

You need to measure the ehight of your equipment. In our second opening, you were planning a second door, of 9 X 7. It should probably be at least 8' high. I think your single centered door would work, if you make it wide enough. The wider the better. The loss of storage space of a couple of feet on each side should be offset by the convenience. If you can't afford to lose the storage space with a larger door, you building is probably too small.

 

[BadDog]

Ahhhh, West Teksuss, a windswept barren land with a few nasty trees... better keep the ugly little thing. Me, I'm surrounded by the light sucking, poison ivy spreading bird poop generators. Hate 'em! Gimme my chainsaw!

Lots of reasons to have doors on both ends. Heres a few and only one of 'em has to do with driving through the building:

1) Ventilation. Sometimes thet-thar building will just get a horrific stink to it. Opening up both doors fully gets rid of the stink real fast.
2) Convenience. You can leave your tractor parked inside the front, but you can drive your truck around back and unload 35 bags of 80lb cement just as the rain starts. Without that back door there you'd be backing out your tractor and swearing later as you decide what to do with all those oddly shaped bricks you now have in your nice wet pickmeuptruck.
3) Convenience. You can drive your tractor right in with the bushhog still attached. In the morning you can drive right out and not worry about getting your armpits wet when you fishtail the hog into the side of the building. For some strange reason reversing inside a building is a lot harder than doing it outside a building.
4) Convenience. You won't ever have anything 'stuck in back of the barn' that you just don't use as much as you like because it's too much of a PITA to get to.
5) Convenience. I think you probably get the picture by now.

Remember you're new to this, you can only see how nice it will be the first day the building is up, and how much better it will be compared to *no* building. I've lived the nightmare of bad building design and survived to do it right, hence my strong, well conveyed and completely correct opinions.

I forgot to mention that light panels suck! They leak, they don't support loads, and they're just plain fugly! Invest in good windows, vinyl ones that have cranks to open them up and levers to seal them tight. Get the screens unless you like bugs.

 

[flusher]

IMHO, your layout is not a good idea. Puts stuff in the closed end of the building too far from a large access door.

Better to put your big doors in the eave side of the building rather than in the gable end (see attachment). My garage shop is 24'x42' with 12' walls, two 10'x10' roll up doors. Easy access to the main doors from anywhere inside the building.

 

[srs]

Don't even bother with a people door

In Maryland it's code that you must have a "people" door. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif