I agree with the others who said 10 feet minimum for the aisle; 12 is ideal.
What about farrier and vet care? Wouldn’t you want an aisle that would be useful and safe for them?
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Yes, safety. You keep saying you don’t get the point of a 12’ aisle, but there’s a dozen old threads you can search that tell you the point, along with everyone that has commented on this thread. Not sure why you posted when you have obviously made up your mind and don’t actually care what anyone else has to say about it.
IMO, wide, spacious aisles are essential for a safe and comfortable facility. My dream barn (come on lottery) will have 21’ wide aisles. No tacking up in them, there’ll be grooming stalls. Just nice, open, and spacious, able to handle any safety-compromising situation thrown at them. Overkill? Sure. But if I ever win the lottery and can actually build it, I’d rather be safe than sorry. As it is, my current barn is a shedrow with a 16’ aisle in front of the stalls. A.MA.ZING. Couldn’t imagine it any narrower, it is fantastic space to work in.
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6’ is absolutely unsafe. You cannot use that wall to hang anything at all, nothing can be on stall doors, no turning a horse if something happens, etc. 10’ bare minimum. If you are building/adding on why would you compromise?? It’s one thing if you’re renovating an existing barn with weight bearing beams in the way (ask me how I know), but I’d never purposely build a 6’ aisle to access stalls. 8’ is also too small.
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Before I give my opinion on a 6’ wide or 8’ wide aisle I want to say that I am not one of the people who thinks a 10’x10’ stall is too tiny for anything. So I am not poster who expects every horse to have extra huge accommodations.
If you are going to spend the money to make your situation better you might as well actually make it better.
For awhile I boarded at a barn with a very narrow center aisle. It was a converted bank barn. I do not know the exact dimensions but it was probably no wider than 8’, certainly not smaller than 6’, so in the size range you are talking.
The problem that happened was it was hard for the horses, even the small horses, to make the corner into their stalls with out catching a hip on the door/door frame. Some horses could not live in this aisle because they became afraid to go in and out of their stalls.
I think in your situation a 12’ wide aisle is over kill. 10’ would give you ample room for easy turns in and out of the stalls. Easy wheel barrow maneuvering too.
As far as the window in your existing tack room being covered, you can leave that window and include a window in your new aisle at that end. That will allow air and light to get into your existing tack room.
As nothing will be stored in the aisle and there will be no cross ties in the aisle I felt 8’ was plenty to make the short walk to the large grooming area. I get that it could be a safety issue but I’m not too terribly concerned about that. The one thing I didn’t think of is turning into or out of stalls in a smaller aisle…you make a very good point. And seeing that my horse wears a size 84 blanket and takes up a 2 horse slant load all by himself because he is that big and long chances are he wouldn’t be able to make that turn. It would have been very costly mistake to make! I will definitely be going with a 10’ aisle. And your right I can about the window. I was planning on adding 3 windows on the aisle wall anyway because I like a nice airy and bright barn so I can just put the wall on the other side of the window. Thanks for your feedback!
Adding a window somewhere is really very easy to do, if you have to change plans because the window is not where you want it if you make the aisle wider.
Anyone can cut a window for your tack room wherever you want it.
We did in our old barn years ago, when we made a tack room out of our old feed room.
We cut a window and framed it with a cheap Home Depot window and put a frame with mesh in it outside, by the very small indoor the window opened to, so a horse would not lick the window if turned out in there.
Our current tack-feed-lounge rooms don’t have windows to the outside, just to the covered arena, on the inside and the doors have glass on the top part.
