Horizon Barns?

[Prime_Time_Rider]

I am planning on building a barn on property I recently purchased. Has anyone out there built a “Horizon” barn, which a modular wooden barn, and if so, are you happy with it? What about maintenance? Would you build another one?

Ideally, I would like to build a metal barn such as a Barnmaster, however, when I received a quote fora 36 x 36 Barnmaster barn with four stalls, a tack room and and indoor wash stall for over $100,000 (including plumbing, electrical and concrete) I nearly fell over. Time to go to Plan “B”.

[vxf111]

I did a pole barn from Pioneer for way less. 8 stall, wash stall, no tackroom… It is half the quote you got. I’m really happy with mine!!!

[Prime_Time_Rider]

The quote I received was for a Barnmaster barn, not a Horizon barn.

[Miss_Motivation]

Depending on where you live… there are a lot of modular barns, like Barnmaster and MD, sold used on Craigslist. There are some deals. When people’s homes get sold or foreclosed, they sometimes sell off unused barns and sheds to realize extra money… or whatever reason.

This can work if you live out west where there are a lot of these modular barns. If you find one, you’ll need an experience barn mover. The biggest issue can be permitting: if you must permit the barn on your property, you can sometimes buy the original engineering plans from the barn maker, as they probably did them the first time they sold the barn.

In my experience, you can usually pay quite a bit less than the asking price, but do plan on spending AT LEAST what you spend for the barn for having it dismantled, moved, and set up on concrete ribbons with slabs for tack, etc. Electrical and plumbing will be additional… but if you have construction-minded family members, most of this is not very hard: these things go together kind of like adult legos.

Rule of thumb for me is $1,000 to $3,000 per stall space for a used barn. Center aisle is more expensive than a shed row, FCP and MD most expensive, Barnmaster OK, Port-A-Stall were good in their day but unless it’s in Arizona, likely very rusted. (Unless it sat for 20 years on someone’s back yard, never used… which happens!) Keep your wits about you and disregard what someone cries that they paid for the barn- they probably did pay that much, but you don’t have to.

You’ll need to look at the panels carefully for the rust issues, and if you buy an assembled barn, take TONS of photos before and during teardown. Consider putting ribbon footings for a new barn that are about 4" high, for the barn to sit up on- it keeps the wall panels from the dreaded pee contact.

Do look for condition of the barns: the biggest thing is the barn panels get rusted out along the bottom from contact with damp bedding. If they are bad, and the frames are really rusted, keep looking. If the damage seems minimal-ish, you have options: flip the walls over so you have fresh walls at the bottom, Bond-O the damaged spots (auto-body filler) and/or flip the walls and then cut the 12" or so of damaged wall off, so you have 7’ interior walls. This actually makes a nice barn because the inside ventilation is much better!

This route is not trouble-free and your concrete, plumbing, and electrical are still pricey, but… you can sure whittle the cost of the barn down if you get lucky. Be patient- I have seen a lot of good deals and am now (as an insomniac) always stumbling across interesting barns.

I’ve built our boarding barn out of lots of recycled things… it’s possible!

You’ll find these modular barns in California and Arizona primarily, on Craigslist. If you live very far from those areas, then freight could be prohibitive and you might not have the snow load you’d need on the roof. I go to 'Farm and Garden" then search for “barn” and check “search titles only” and “has image” on the left, and then I check all the nearby areas I can. This saves time. You can also use www.onecraigs.com for national searches.

Sometimes you will want to look by major areas: in CA I look in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Inland Empire, and San Diego. Arizona I do Phoenix. Nevada I do Las Vegas and Reno.

Here’s a few current ads:
-8 stall MD barn with 16’ center aisle, 2 tack rooms, wash racks, cross ties. $29,500 http://modesto.craigslist.org/grd/5611497995.html

-7 stall MD Lonestar (4’ walls with pipe tops, great in warm areas) shed row, tack room, 3 12 x 20’ foaling stalls, big covered porch on part of it- nice design. $18,500 http://sierravista.craigslist.org/grd/5627298056.html

-4 stall MD shed row with 4 big stalls, feed room, cross tie area, etc. looks almost new. $19,500 http://fresno.craigslist.org/grd/5584839940.html

-4 stall Barnmaster shed row with feed/tack. Decent condition, looks like. $11,000 http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/grd/5618590280.html

-8 stall FCP shedrow. This barn was for sale earlier- looks like someone maybe bought it (its disassembled) and can’t put it up due to zoning or something. It looks almost new. No price given. http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/grd/5585352015.html

10 stall center aisle, they bought it used so it’s disassembled. Tongue and groove wood, looks decent. 12’ aisle. Asking $17,000. http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/grd/5539691535.html

If you watch the ads, you will find these barns… Happy Barn Hunting!

[Pennywell_Bay]

Horizon did the barn at my old farm, I lament they don’t come out to Indy (can’t find a good Amish barn builder out here).

I loved it. It was about 13 years old when I sold my farm in PA and a great building.

[soloudinhere]

My trainer has a horizon barn, built in 2008. I guess I’m really not that impressed with it - the stall fronts are already quite rusted, the stain has not held up well on the wood. Not sure if it’s bad maintenance on her part but she expressed not being that impressed with it for the price she paid. She built a new one in late 2013 and that one seems to be better, but time tells all.

[Libby2563]

Sent you a PM.

[Prime_Time_Rider]

Libby, Thanks for your PM. That’s exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

[dressagegirl123]

I’m thinking of buying one of the Horizon barns, too! They look good in the brochures… Libby, would you share your insights with me? I’m building in NJ if that matters…

[mellsmom]

Pennywell- PM me, I have a good amish barn builder contact.

[I_ride_Gibson]

Libby - will you please PM me as well? I am looking into ordering a run in from them. Thanks.

[TheJenners]

Is Horizon mainly east coast? Libby, may as well add me to the list, curious about run-in prices

[Manahmanah]

[QUOTE=vxf111;8701616]
I did a pole barn from Pioneer for way less. 8 stall, wash stall, no tackroom… It is half the quote you got. I’m really happy with mine!!![/QUOTE]

That is a good price. Do you have a thread with pictures of yours?

[gypsymare]

Most of the Amish modular barn sellers all get their barns from one large manufacturer. Get multiple quotes. Penn Dutch Structures was a bit cheaper than Horizon for my barn.

[Rallycairn]

We got two run-in sheds from Horizon last year – very happy with the quality and with the customer service and super careful driver/delivery personnel.

[avjudge]

[QUOTE=gypsymare;8856181]
Most of the Amish modular barn sellers all get their barns from one large manufacturer.[/QUOTE]

I wondered about that. I saw things that looked almost identical advertised elsewhere (a Vermont publication, I think) under a different name.

[fourfillies]

Try Eberly. Similar structures, great service and competitive price point (less than Horizon when I comped them out a while back). In SE PA as well.

[TheJenners]

[QUOTE=Rallycairn;8856188]
We got two run-in sheds from Horizon last year – very happy with the quality and with the customer service and super careful driver/delivery personnel.[/QUOTE]

You can PM me (never got one from Libby), but do you have pics and what was the price like?

[Minuet]

Any other insights on Horizon? We are looking at Horizon, as well as National Barn Company. Anything you can post or PM would be greatly appreciated.

[avjudge]

We had a 36x24 center-aisle high-profile Horizon barn installed last month. It’s not in use yet - it’s at my childhood home that we’ll be retiring to in the next year or 2, and we’ll get horses (and who knows what else) then. My dad lives there now.

We will be using the loft to store hay, as that’s the most important reason for us to have a barn - that, and a covered workspace (aisle) and tack & grain storage. The stalls will just be for occasional use, if that; there are existing run-in sheds.

The modular construction worked out particularly well for someone who doesn’t currently live on site - lots of planning via email from our current home, then just a few days prep work by a local excavator, a delivery day, and 3 1/4 days of construction. The excavators are back today doing some landscaping, after running a water line to a spigot in the aisle yesterday.

Comments:

First, I’d like to mention - and I think this is new, as I hadn’t seen it before, though I might have just missed it - that they have a map with their barns on their site:
https://www.horizonstructures.com/referral-rewards
Most have pictures and contact email attached, just click on the “pins.” So you can find owners of barns near you and/or of the type you’re interested in. I will suggest that if you contact a barn owner, they may be surprised, so start the email by introducing yourself and saying how you got their info (you’re not a creepy stalker). Horizon lists my husband’s email, not mine, but he never mentioned to me that they’d told him of this page. Though we’d be happy to share our experiences with anyone, so in our case (and I’m sure many others’) that wouldn’t be an issue.

So far I like the barn - but it’s only been there a few weeks! No word on how it weathers, and no “living with it” yet. My dad’s getting lots of compliments from the neighbors.

Most importantly, what we have is what I expected. The one thing that I might change if I were doing it over (front ground level window size) was a design decision I made. And if I did it the other way I might find I like the current way better after all.

We didn’t do any comparison shopping - though I knew from the start I should have, this was something my husband gave me as a Christmas present last year and I wasn’t all-in at the beginning - and comparison shopping would have been something for me to do, not his style. Not doing it was me being weird, afraid we’d jinx the whole retirement thing. (Of course, until we actually move there, I can’t say for certain that we didn’t!) But because of this I can’t address the relative cost. I leave that up to you.

Both the delivery and construction crews sometimes didn’t seem to get the memo from Horizon. I was told the delivery driver would take a check for the portion due then; uh, no, he didn’t handle money. I was told the construction crew would have us do a walk-through and then take the final check. No again. I was in the house waiting for a knock, looking out every so often as they finished up but not wanting to get in their way until they were ready for us, then looked out and they were gone! Fortunately I’d already pointed out a few minor things (cosmetic - e.g. caulk between a couple pieces) and the things they should have fixed (sliding doors that didn’t quite meet right) were easily adjusted so I didn’t call & have them sent back.

The following is not Horizon-specific, it’s about the type of barn:

After the steps I mentioned above - site prep, delivery & construction, site clean-up - you’ll still have to do floors before it’s a really usable barn. As a modular building each part is set on a 6x6 frame so, as delivered, going through any interior door requires stepping over this frame. Also, there’s a small gap under most of the frame, between the piers, where the stone dust pad should be about 1/2" below the piers. (A shedrow barn doesn’t have piers, it just sits on the prepared pad, so that depends on how flat the pad is.) I’m planning to add an additional few inches of stone dust to the stalls (not all the way to top of the frame; I’ll leave them down slightly from the aisle) and I’ve been interestedly reading in the COTH forum about stall skins and the like to top that off. The tack room comes with a plywood floor. I’m leaning toward a wood floor for the aisle - local rough-sawn hemlock - like most of the local old barns, but it could also be filled to the top of the frame with stone dust or topped with pavers or concrete.

Because of the pier foundation on these barns (or, if a shedrow, no foundation) and wood tack room floor, you’ve got a perfect critter home there - they just have to dig under 6" of wall that doesn’t extend below ground level and they’re in a veritable critter palace. The chipmunks that moved in within the first week don’t really bother me, but I don’t want to be in my sister’s position - she has a family of skunks that keeps finding entry into the crawl space under her house. Ugh. Before the final landscaping that’s happening today (an extra inch or 2 of gravel is going around the building to hide the gap under it from the outside), I put a 2’ skirt of hardware cloth, stapled to the bottom of the building. I hope that will deter them, at least for a few years. Before I finish the aisle I’ll put skirting on that side of the tack room, and if I put wood floors elsewhere, I’ll put similar skirting around those areas.

If I could have one “druther” - which I could in a stick-built barn - it would be taller sidewalls in proportion to the building’s width. This would improve storage space and aesthetics. The modular construction style means the roof’s lower edge rests on top of the two side modules, and the tops of those same modules form the floor of the loft, so there’s zero headroom at the outside edge of the loft. A traditional barn has walls extending 3’ or so above the loft floor before the roof begins. In addition to reduced loft space, this makes ours look a little squat (36’ wide and 22’ or so tall - that’s with 10’ tall modules) compared to a traditional barn (such as the one we have a picture of on the same spot prior to 193x). But if we ever need to reach the peak, like to repaint, we’ll be happy it’s not taller!

Hope this is helpful.