How many doors? 60x40 metal building

[ITHINKICAN]

We are about to pull the trigger on our 60x40 metal building with 16' eaves and 4:1 pitch. Recently I've seen several pictures of buildings with only one roll up door and only one walk door. We were thinking of having a couple of each. Current contract shows 2 @ 14x14' roll up doors, 2 @ 3070 walk doors and 1 @ 10x10' roll up door.

Before I do something I might regret - what are the up side and down side issues to having multiple roll up doors and multiple walk doors... Our building is for basic storage and maybe some day a couple bedrooms or a tv room and maybe a small bathroom and maybe even a small kitchen...

If you could have the perfect 60x40 building - how many doors would you have? And why?

Thank you TBN!!

 

[Zebrafive]

I have a 42 x 63, 12 foot walls (should have gone 16'). On the rake end (faces east) I have a pair of 12' sliders for 24' opening. on the eave side (faces south) I have one 15' slider, 15' from the west end. Only one walk door. No windows. I did not want any doors on the street side (north) that could be seen when open from the road.

My building is on land remote from my house (6 miles away), only use is storage. My site was not condusive to having doors on opposite walls for drive thru or I might have done that.

If I were to do it over again, it would be 16' high, have light panels the top two feet of the south wall, and have a loft on the west end.

 

[whistlepig]

A metal barn with just one garage door can get pretty toasty in the summer. I like a garage door in each end for driving through and to get some air moving through the barn.

 

[ovrszd]

Here's my building, 42x50, three 10Hx12W rollups, one 36" walk thru. Should have put another walk thru on the eave side by the single rollup. As the shop fills it becomes even more critical about door location and size. I wouldn't consider a door narrower than 10ft wide. Also wouldn't consider a walk thru narrower than 36" You're gonna love having a building. My wife says I should have put a bedroom in mine since I'm always there!!! :thumbsup:

 

[ITHINKICAN]

Thank you all for the replies.

zf, we're doing the best we can with the direction and privacy issues - it is rural/remote but unfortunately it is a corner lot...

wp, definitely agree... i guess I just needed someone else to remind me

ovrszd, Yep> i wondered the same thing - I learned the 3070 is 3' x 7'. I see you did ceiling only for the insulation - I wanted it for everywhere but I am told it is a complete waste - now that I see yours I think I am leaning towards ceiling too... can always do the walls later (if it becomes necessary).

I wish it was cold enough here for a wood burning stove...

 

[beppington]

More doors = more options. Less doors = less options.

You can always just not open a door (i.e. put stuff in front of it). You cannot always just open a wall.

 

[CompactTractorFan]

If it were me: I'd have three overhead doors on one 60' side and one overhead door on the other 60' side at the end. This way you can have at least one drive through bay.

 

[CompactTractorFan]

For me personally, I would only want one walk door. That is all that seems necessary.

 

[beppington]

Oh, & right now my attached garage has a single 16' wide by 7' hi standard garage door, & it's very tight to pull tow cars in (especially when one is my Nissan Titan).

Whereas, my detached garage (barn?) has a single 18' wide by 8' hi garage door ... Now that's a much more spacious opening. :thumbsup:

 

[brain55]

More doors = more options. Less doors = less options.

You can always just not open a door (i.e. put stuff in front of it). You cannot always just open a wall.

I agree with this for sure. If it were mine I would have the two 14' x 14' doors opposite each other on one end of the 40' sides so I would have a 60' drive through that I could pull my truck and trailer in and leave attached. Then on the 60' side, opposite of where I put the 14' roll-ups I would have four 12' x 12' roll-ups with a man door on each end. But that is just me.

Brian

 

[rocknrod]

I have a 30'X60' and have two roll up doors on one long side - side by side and one roll up door on the other side of the building opposite end.

 

[texasjohn]

I have a 40x60 ft shop that is adjacent to my house.

16 ft wide roll up on one end, 14 on other end so you can drive thru.
Love it because I can pull pickup and long trailer in quickly and get out of the rain. Wish both were 16 ft wide. both are tall doors, never know when you might want to drag something tall into the building. Luxury would be power and remotes for the roll up doors.

I set the roll up doors 6 feet back from the side of the building, allowing metal racking/shelving to be installed all along one side. Can't have too much storage.

no windows, superb light provided by skylight roofing panels, one per 20 foot bay on each side (6 total) ..very happy with this.

Every man door has a window in it. 3 man doors, one on each side and one on one end. 2 are extra wide doors, wish all 3 were extra wide...makes it so much easier when carrying stuff in and out ...which is done all the time.

Sometimes wish there was a man door on the other end...if rollup is shut, you gotta walk to the side to get into the shop... would be solved if rollup were electric with remote

don't forget lights outside the doors, some perhaps motion activated.

Sides are tall.... allows attachment of a side shed later...which I am now in process of adding

 

[Mike Costello]

Regarding insulation, I would recommend doing the roof and all walls. Insulation works both ways in winter and summer. It's also cheaper to install while building rather than after construction. My 30X60 shop is fully insulated with two 10'X16' doors and one 36" man door. Windows at each end plus vented ridge cap provide plenty of air flow. I also installed a third window in my workbench area because I like to see whats going on around me.

Tall garage doors are a must because you don't want to have to worry about big equipment harming the building when you get distracted while pulling into the shop. I went a little further with this idea and installed garage door openers with remotes. My doors are either all the way open or closed.

 

[Cat_Driver]

More doors rather than less even if it's for ventilation. Great to have good ventilation on a nice day. I would add as many sky light panels as possible that really saves on electricity.
Insulation is a must also look into the roof vets they let the heat out of the top of the ceiling.

Floor drains if you washing anything inside during the winter? Look into fire sprinklers.

It's cheaper to do things in the beginning than later.

 

[zene55]

I bought some property with a 60 x 40 metal building already on it. It only had two doors, both on one end of the building. I add a walk through door on the side and was shocked how exspensive it was. I would suggest getting all the doors you want up front.

 

[texasjohn]

my six skylight panels is all that is needed for Texas, so bright inside I often try to turn out the lights as I leave during the day:laughing:

I have a drain installed...this requires a circular depression of quite some size..which makes it impossible to put anything there for both function and unlevel reasons...don't think I would do again.

ridge vents, passive, along entire ridge, keeps things as cool as possible, certainly needed.

I installed white bubble wrap with radiant barrier on walls and ceiling. R value is very low, 3 if I recall correctly. Radiant barrier worth it. However, the particular batch of bubble wrap barrier installed was bad from the factory, after couple of years it totally started disintegrating on all surfaces. Soooo messy on the floor. Story is that it was made with a bad batch of chemicals. Builder said several buildings were involved that he built. Muiller building made it right, offered to either reinstall for free or make a reasonable $$ settlement while they took manufacturer to court. I settled for $$ and appreciated their approach.:thumbsup:

I have kept a promise I made to myself...spending that much money, I needed flexibility. Thus, except for shelving around perimeter, everything in the middle is on wheels/casters. I CAN'T TELL YOU HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS. I have rearranged the interior dozens of times depending on activities and need. The wheels/casters/dollies to do this cost a little, but are as important as any other attachment to the building.

 

[ecoslik]

For our 40'x60', we bought all from Mueller except for insulation, misc door stoppers and chain retainers.

We have:

1.) 2" spray foam (super efficient R14 because of perfect vapor barrier) insulation on all walls and ceiling. I was told that it is a waste to do anything more than 1" thick and ceiling only. Bah!! First and foremost, insulating walls makes sense when the walls are subjected to 30-120 days of 95+ heat per year. I like the complete vapor, dust, water, insect seal created by spraying everything. In my area, the added benefit of sound dampening was a big sell point. Metal buildings can leak small amounts of water (not huge issue) through any of the screw holes over time when the screws loosen or are not originally set at correct depth or straight, and the seal of the spray foam offers extra protection. Everything remains much cleaner inside and the bugs have less pathways. FWIW, the business of the spray insulation guys is slow, and we were able to negotiate the first inch of thickness at their standard price and the second inch at their cost of materials since there is no additional labor to apply additional inches.

2.) 14'x14' OVH doors on opposite ends (east and west sides ) of the building.

3.) 2-qty 3'x6' non-insulated windows (north side) that are horizontally above where we plumbed water.

3.) 4-qty, 4'x7' doors on each side of building. I prefer 4' doors versus 3' because they allow for equipment, wheelbarrows, pallets, etc (probably your 4-wheelers) to be brought through doorways.

CAUTION ... The man-doors that you purchase from Mueller (probably others also), may be installed to swing in OR out. For a couple of reasons, I have 2 doors that swing in and 2 that that swing out. The doors that swing in will leak at the threshhold when water/rain hits the 2 inches of the slab that shows if you do not have a canopy above or ... for doors that swing in provide a slab detail for these 2 inches (+/-) that slopes away from the building; doors that swing out do not need this detail because the outside face of the door is flush with edge of slab.

FYI ... The metal trim around doors prevents doors from opening flush against the outside of the building.

FYI ... Doors that swing out will need spring loaded chain type retainers (very inexpensive) so the wind doesn't grab the door and bend the hinges. Doors that swing in should have a rubber bumper or similar to prevent banging.

FYI ... we just added 2-qty 30'x60' (approx) shed roofs (north and south sides).

 

[Robert_in_NY]

On our 40x64 barn we have 4 overhead doors and two 36" man doors. The overheads are on the gable ends and there is a 10'x16' and 7x9 on each end with the man doors on each end as well. Works well for us but this barn is tiered so the small overheads are at the ends of a 16x64 section and the large overheads in the 24x64 section. There is about a 30" height difference in the floors between the two sections.

 

[Bird]

There was a 40' x 60' shop building on my place when I bought it. Walls were only 10' and the 2 walk doors, one rollup door, and one window that you can see in the picture were the only ones it had. The walk door on the same side as the rollup door was never used. Taller walls and more doors would be preferable.