Has anyone built a clear span steel covered arena on their property? We’re considering the pros and cons of building, the cost being the only con on the list. The pros are less work lost from rain, fewer days spent in the scorching Florida summer sun and a bigger draw to our property for clients. I’m fairly certain the cost of the arena would never cover itself in client fees though.
For those who did it, did you have any regrets afterward? Were there any extra costs you weren’t aware of until mid project? Did you manage the project yourself or hire a contractor to manage the project start to finish?
A friend just spent $55,000 on a 60’x100’ covered arena. She loves it. The ring is small, but she only rides1 horse at a time. It is Colin the summer and useable in rain and snow.
I built a covered arena on my property for my own use 16 years ago. I used a contractor, because I have no clue about such things. They handled everything, start to finish (permits, concrete trucks, steel delivery, etc.). Mine is super basic, no lights, fans, speakers or seating area, (it’s at my house, not a professional barn) but I did have to install a sprinkler system, because even though it is covered, you’d be amazed how quickly the footing dries out. I think that was the only unexpected expense - had to dig a new well and put in a 5 hp pump, because the house well was too far away, and I couldn’t get enough pressure to cover the centerline. (My roof is 95’ x 225’)
Definitely nice in the southern summers, and great to be able to ride after rains swamp everybody else’s arenas (just this week, had someone stay after a saddle fit clinic I hosted so her trainer could come give her a lesson in my arena, since hers was flooded).
Only regret is that the roof isn’t removable for those really nice comfy-weather days. 
Don’t know what the price of steel is nowadays, but a friend got the same company I used to give her a quote for a comparable arena several years after I built mine, and the price had tripled!
One thing you really need to consider before construction is the orientation on your property. Consider where prevailing winds tend to blow, and what direction rain comes from. Around here, prevailing winds are West to East, so most rains come from those directions. My arena is also West to East, so only the short ends get wet when rain blows in, and I have the whole rest of the arena to work in. A trainer a mile from me built North to South, so her entire West long side gets soaked, making the useable area of her arena like a skinny piece of spaghetti (her arena is just dressage-court size).
If you are thinking the actual Clearspan brand, I wouldn’t recommend. A barn near me has one that I have ridden in numerous times for clinics, and shows. It’s beastly hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and the rain can be a more startling noise for some horses than on a metal roof. Around here was also have to deal with snow, which can be pretty spooky when it starts sliding off the canvas material.
Bottom line, they are basically giant green houses, and I can’t imagine they would be very comfortable to use in Florida in the summer.
You are talking about an all steel, clear span, not on trusses, metal arena?
We did, seems like most everyone here that trains and doesn’t has one pays to use others so much of the time, it is worth it.
We got bids from several manufacturers.
We ordered the covered arena from Rhino in Denton, TX.
They ship nationally and have erectors in many states.
They gave us names of some they use and some were here, some were from other places, one Georgia, that had a crew building one in our area.
We decided to put it up ourselves.
We had a local fellow build the pad for the structure.
We went with their engineer’s plans to a local civil engineering firm to design an appropriate foundation for our location.
We had a concrete contractor lay the foundation and we built from that on.
It came in two long flat bed trucks, we unloaded it, all was clearly labeled and a neighbor, his helper and I put it up in no time at all.
We had quotes for local builders for the whole job and they were double what we could put it up for.
Do find out who is building those where you are and get several quotes from them.
Be sure to compare so the bids are all on the same work, if preparing the site, the foundation, ordering the material and putting it all up and that they put in the contract a time to start and finish and cumulative fines if not finished on time.
Once it was finished, we had the local construction company that takes care of fairgrounds and other riding venues prepare the pad and add the right sand footing for our kind of riding.
They did an absolutely fabulous job, horses train well and have not had any one stressed or hurt on it and they have gone on to win plenty.
We have the West end closed, is where most of our winds and heat comes from.
We have screens in the North side, so we don’t get blizzards blowing snow in there.
The other two sides rarely get any rain in there.
If you build anything, you will pull your hair and go temporarily insane.
In the end is worth to have a place out of the weather to ride all year around, priceless.
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Very helpful responses.
I didn’t consider the rain soaking an entire long side…ugh.
I’m wondering if insulating the roof is worth the expense to cut down on rain noise and heat from the sun on the roof.
There have been a few covered arenas that have popped up in my area over the past months. I might be able to find out who they used for the work.
With insulation, you have to take into consideration the birds in your area. The insulated arenas I know of here ended up having to remove the insulation because the birds kept tearing it up for nesting material. Even the styrofoam board type got big holes in it, and little white piles of styrofoam in the footing. One even had wire over the insulation, but they just pulled it out through the holes in the wire. Made a mess!
There are a few things you can do about the heat:
- Make the arena tall enough at the eaves that any heat under the roof is far above you. (I think mine is 18’ at the eave, might be taller. I wanted it tall enough that someone on a tall horse jumping a high fence at the edge of the arena won’t bean themselves on the rafters.)
- Make the pitch of the roof steep enough so that the heat can go up into the peak. (I thiink mine is 3:12, most I see are only 1:12)
- Put roof vents in at the peak so the heat can go out.
- Install Big Ass Fans (an actual company name.)
Heat will be worse with a lower, flatter roof. It will also be worse if you put solid kickwalls up (I just have a 2-board fence around mine). I did nos. 1-3 listed above, and notice a big difference in heat between mine and others in the area that have solid walls and lower, flatter roofs. I get plenty of breeze through mine, they all ended up having to do #4.
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yaya, thank you for all of your pointers. I’d not considered doing more than a 1:12 as I was only taking the lack of snow load into consideration.
The insulation I’ve seen around here has a full ceiling covering the material but that might be overkill and out of my budget.
Closed cell spray foam for the insulation may be an option and would likely be less attractive to critters.
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Our roof pitch is 2/12 on 18’ eaves.
It is framed, no trusses, that makes a difference how much room you have there and on birds roosting in there.
Trusses make them bird heaven in there.
For open buildings, we don’t need any insulation here, only enclosed buildings have that.
We don’t need fans and to water, we use a water trailer.
We also have used sprinklers on tripods.
There are arena drags with water tanks on them running off the PTO or with their own pump motors.
The closed cell spray foam I’ve seen is unattractive to humans, too! I used it in my barn roof, and because it dries a really ugly yellow color, had to put plywood on top of it and paint it.
We did a cover almost 20 years ago. It’s 20m x 60m. It’s steel, un-insulated. It’s lighted for night work. It’s one of the smartest things I ever did. We are in East TN and we can have high heat/humidity and deep cold. We lose about 30 days a year to both, combined. Before that we lost months over the course of the year, mostly because we get almost 50" of rain/year. It has been a very positive experience.
In building any clear-span structure the money is in the width. Below about 50’ it’s not a great problem. Beyond that the steel must get progressively more robust. The cover requires a more robust construction than a walled structure. The roof can act as a “wing” and generate lift in high winds. Walls can cause the structure to be “stiffer” and alter the shape so that the “lift” effect is less of an issue. So the cover will likely cost only slightly less than building to set up but will be grossly less expensive to run. In FL you might have to add large ceiling fans to keep the air moving. Be careful in your site selection. We did a “seat of the pants” analysis of air flow 'round the farm and we placed it where we’d get decent breezes in the summer. We do get more cold wind in the winter, but our climate is biased toward summer so that was our choice.
For summer use you could add something like this https://www.amazon.com/Casa-Velocity-Brushed-Nickel-Ceiling/dp/B00DF2F1ZE/ref=sr_1_1_sspa/144-4868616-1703623?ie=UTF8&qid=1509900046&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=72+inch+ceiling+fan&psc=1
I’ve ridden in one of the “plastic” indoor arenas in a facility outside of Atlanta in the spring. Draftmare is correct in her observations.
IMO even further north I’d go with a cover vice a full indoor. Indoor arenas MUST have adequate ventilation or then end up like the Cooler in “The Great Escape.” That means lots of windows for summer but that’s a problem in winter. Further South you’ll likely need some sort of air handling (exhaust fans, ceiling fans, etc.). Anytime you need something powered by electricity you’ve got significant expense.
Spend some time thinking about this before you make final decisions!!! 
G.
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Because you are in Florida you will have to comply with wind/hurricane requirements. That may or may not add to the overall cost. Also, need to check permitting requirements for where you live. I priced one years and years ago, steel truss type was $80,000, don’t recall the size, priced one from Morton Barn also and it was more.
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Yes, very true. I didn’t have to comply with hurricane requirements but did for snow loading (even thought in East TN we get an average of 9"/year; but in 2003 we got 28" in one storm ). So you will have to meet the building code requirements for your area.
G.
I got my first quote today. I was expecting the cost of the steel, but I was a little shocked at the price of having it assembled. They said contractors will charge $5 to $6 and sometimes up to $10 per square foot to put the structure up once it’s delivered. So, it would be $84k for the steel and $70-$140k more for assembly. So, after that, we still have no site prep, concrete or footing. I’m beginning to think I’ll just teach my horses to tolerate a shade umbrella on their butts!
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Ya gotta shop around!!!
When I put one up almost 20 years ago the low bid was in the $50 Thousand range IIRC and the high was north of $120,000. The guy I went with was the third lowest but made the most professional presentation. He did an outstanding job and the final cost was $64,500, turnkey.
Shop for both cost and reputation. It’s my practice to strike the low and high bid and work from the center.
Good luck in your project.
G.
That.
We had 6 bids for the barn kit itself.
We had two bids that were lower, then the one we accepted, then three more, one higher, two more much higher, the highest double the one we accepted.
The two highest ones were local companies, that they themselves then sub to the other companies we could buy directly from, why the super high prices as middlemen.
We were extremely satisfied with the barn we received and the ease it went up, following their plans and well numbered materials.
That company came well recommended, that one reason we bought from them.
Building a barn is a real headache, the most important is to take time before any decision and put up a continuous supply of patience, sufficient to last thru the hair-raising, I mean, barn-raising experience.
I got a much better quote from another company today (large sigh of relief)
The more the merrier, with a half dozen or so as a fair number.
G.
Around here, I think it’s actually cheaper to do a fully enclosed arena than covered due to the engineering required to have the roof of a covered handle the snow loads AND the sometimes hurricane force winds. The best covered arenas I rode in in the SE were ones that were much larger span than the actual arena to minimize the amount of wet weather that made it into the arena. So, I dunno, doing the math between putting up walls versus making an even larger roof might be kind of a wash as far as cost, depending on what kind of weather you need to build for.
