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Building a Barn 2021 - Costs & Tips?

We are doing 36x72 steel structure, 5 dutch doors, 36x36 concrete, Just the building and concrete were going to be about 50k with us putting it up ourselves. Now we have been waiting on approval for 3 months and it is already looking like closer to 60-70k, so we may put it off. I have heard that prices may go down slightly around the end of Q2. My guesstimate does include a full hayloft, but no stalls, etc.

i sure don’t want to be Debbie Downer. I dreamed of my own tiny little barn for a lonnnnnng time. so I get it!!! But building and building contractors are pure hell to deal with even WHEN prices are low, and Covid shortages and other issues are not in place. Plan that dream barn. Take your time to do it, but board your babies while this train wreck of materials 4x as much and lack of help, and all the back ups
etc. Its SO costly it makes no sense right now, honestly. :frowning: now, again 
 not knowing where you live if you can deal with pasture keeping and put up your couple of turnout run ins, then its STILL gonna cost WAAAAYYYY more for your fencing and turnouts, but maybe you could just do your planning and only fence some dry lot areas with runins to keep the fencing needed at a minimum. I dunno. But GOOD planning takes a long time, lots of playing around and making changes, and I’d do that once you’re there, can walk things off, mark them off, make your layout including everything and all considerations. And board em while you do.

I’m sure I will be posting here about it as we move forward! Right now we are finishing up electric/concrete in the barn, then grading and site cleanup immediately around it, then moving on to use planning/arena placement and grading in the remainder of the 1.5 acres that is my “barnyard.” My husband is sure I’m trying to kill him!

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Built in 2019-2020, so the prices will be more now. Almost all of the labor was done by DH, hiring someone else would have been at least double. In rural MO. And all of these are just estimates from my memory.

200x80 Outdoor arena: $9,500ish
Excavation-$1700
2" base rock-$1000
Fabric-$1200 (ordered through the construction company DH works for)
4-5 inches of screenings-$3400 (laser leveled by DH)
2" of sand-$2000
Old utility poles as a border-Free

30x40 pole barn with 2 windows, one 15’ slider, and one walk-through, bubble wrap insulation-$12,000
Literally just the building put up, no insides or excavation

Trenching electric and water from road-$750 (just materials)

Retrofitting a 40x40 pole barn that was already out there-$4000
Built two 14x14 stalls
Built a couple walls to make a corner of it a run-in
Insulated it and reinforced a lot of the older wood
Ran electric (ourselves)

5 strand high tensile (coated) electric fence with cedar posts-$4000 (cut all the cedar ourselves and put it up ourselves) This includes a dry lot, and three pastures that total about 7.5 acres.

Modest 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom house with walk-out basement-$175,000 (mixture of DH and I and contractors)

Plus several thousand on gravel for driveway, barns, and dry lot

Plus $6500 to put in a septic system

Plus a whole lot of money I don’t want to talk about to drain and re-dig our 1-acre pond

Plus a tractor, lawn mower, tools, etc.

But we’re super happy here and I couldn’t find a house that I liked on land that I liked locally so we built. Wouldn’t have been possible without DH being in construction.

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That sounds like a bargain, even pre massive price increases. If you don’t mind, where did you buy the building and who put it up?

Purchased from a local building supply company (Kingdom City Building Supply) and the Amish put it up.

It got more expensive if you wanted more doors/windows/etc. but we’re just using it as equipment storage.

Thank you! I’ve bought a small farm in MO and am moving horses in June. Of course I bought the farm just before new price increases and am torn between just putting up a run-in or biting the price increases and putting up the barn I want (which is not fancy or very large). The barn I want to put up will have run-in space so I won’t need the additional run-in after the barn goes up. If I could just get my mind around the fact that horses can live happily without significant man made shelter as long as they can get out of the sun


Welcome to MO!

FWIW, I used my stalls about 3 nights this past year (when the wind chill was -20). The rest of the time they’re either happily out in the pasture or hang out in the run-in. Otherwise, the stalls are just used to hold them before farrier/vet/etc.

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That’s what mine do here in Northern Illinois. If I’m totally honest the stalls are for me, as you mentioned I only really use the stalls for a holding area for vet, farrier etc. The other benefit to the barn - holder for all farm and horse necessities. I’ve been here 30 years, I have so much stuff - it’s all really necessary! :joy: :joy:

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Preach! :rofl:

I built an indoor/barn in 2019. I will say that whatever your estimate for the building is, double it in your head by the time you do the groundwork, septic, plumbing, electrical, etc. and we did a lot of DIY on the interior, so that was less expensive. Just the groundwork was astronomical. And fencing, aye.

It will also never, ever reduce your “boarding costs.” Boarding is always cheaper compared to having horses at home, unless you have a ton of pasture and keep out close to 24/7. I absolutely love my facility and would do it again in a heartbeat, but I could have bought a six figure WB and campaigned it for years for the cost of my facility!

This. It depends on your location. I had a 100’ x 30’ existing old barn in TX that had been a converted hog barn. I put the old barn on Craigslist to demolish and take away the metal and stalls. I spent $62K on a new Morton Buildings barn— with 3 12x14 stalls, a feed room and wash stall in a shed-row design that’s open to the SE prevailing winds. The plumbing, electrical, and dirt work were extra. And I got the benefit of the fact that they were all kind of there already but had tp be moved. I don’t need runs because my horse(s) are out 24x7 on 90 acres and they can come in and out of the barn as they want. I agree on materials availability etc. Again I don’t know where you are, but if you can buy and remodel, I think you might be ahead?

I’m honestly curious, why open to prevailing winds?

I purposely placed my stalls so they open opposite prevailing winds.
Only the rare storm comes from that direction.
My barn is not a shedrow, it’s center aisle & I (stupidly) had insufficient overhang added.
Stalls - facing away from prevailing winds - are open 24/7 to paddock & pastures, they act as a run-in.

Maybe where you are the weather - rain, snow - doesn’t blow into your stalls?

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I know sounds weird, right? I’m in south central Texas and our prevailing wind during the spring/summer/fall is out of the SE. It gets pretty hot here (usually)–90s and 100 or slightly over during that time. It can range from a slight breeze to 20+mph but when it’s that hot and when it’s humid, you want that breeze. When we get rain or storms from the SE—which isn’t often, they are not usually very strong. Our big winds, cold, and bad storms come out of the NW, N, and NE. Like yesterday. Big red cells dropped 2-3" of rain in 45 minutes blowing like mad out of the NW. They had predicted winds up to 60mph and big hail. I didn’t get that much wind but it was howling nevertheless, but just over my hill did. I’m in a bit of a valley.

I got Bounce in the barn just in time and as I ran around the back to unlatch his dutch window to close it and shut the north end barn door, got absolutely soaked through to the bone in less than 20 seconds. The wind was blowing the rain sideways–out of the NW, so directly into the stall. If it’s just raining and not blowing, the back of the barn has a small overhang and the stalls don’t get wet at all. Yeah it blew in the aisle a bit—maybe about 2-3’ inside, but the overhang and gutters and trees protect the aisle mostly. The aisle is 16 feet wide before you get to the stall fronts—so it’s never a problem and it’s concrete with a heavy broom finish so it doesn’t hurt anything. And with the back Dutch window shut, the horse(s) is/are just fine. I wish I knew how to put a picture in here and it would be more clear.

Same here!
Which is why my stalls open - in the back - on the East & are partially blocked on the North by the indoor that is 7’ wider on each side than the barn.
Stalls are on the East side of the barn, with 12’ open space - used for hay,feed,tack - then a 12’ aisle in front of the front stall doors.
When the occasional bad weather comes from the East, my Southernmost stall will get rain or snow blown in.
If it’s rain, the bedding at the edge of the rear door gets soaked, if it’s a blizzard I have to sweep or even shovel that stall out.
In heavy rainstorms, I often find all 3 of my horses in the North stall, that one gets most protection from the wall of the indoor.