Help design interior of pole barn

[twosocks90]

Help! I'm paralyzed by indecision. We have a 42x80x12 pole barn that's used as a garage, workshop, and for storing hay. Right now there are no interior walls and just a dirt floor. I'm just about to start building walls and placing concrete.

When we put the building up a few years ago I envisioned the interior like the first attachment here with the shop in the back and that's how we're using it now - work area, parking, hay, etc.

I'm just about to start framing walls and I'm having second thoughts about the layout. Putting the shop in the middle makes the office bigger and gives a little better access to drive vehicles in the shop from the driveway. But am I losing any benefits that way?

My main needs are:

• Small enough shop to heat up quickly when I need to fix a car in winter.
• Heated office space for the days I work from home.
• Parking to squeeze the kids cars in (6-8 cars total) when the weather turns lousy.

One thing to note is that it's not possible to drive cars around the building from the driveway to the back yard. The terrain is too rough for anything but a tractor or truck.

Please, offer your criticism or suggestions of my plans. I want to start building but I keep having second thoughts about the layout.

 

[little d]

Pics didn't load and not to sure about your description.

 

[twosocks90]

Whoops. Edited original post to add the attachments. Can you see them now?

 

[buffaloguy89]

Looking at your plans, I would prefer the one with the shop on the side. reason being you do not have to go through the parking area every time you want to get something in/out of the shop. although when you said you cant drive around to the back does that mean the west side? what if you graded the terrain to make easier access? that would give more options IMHO.

 

[Sureshot]

How much hay?
I would look for another place to store the hay. Mice and fire.

 

[twosocks90]

About ten large round bales per year.

Buffaloguy: My original plan was to simply drive cars around to the west side when they needed to get in the shop, but reality is that there's a steep dropoff on the north side. Between the dropoff, mud when it rains and deep snow that accumulates there, it's a tough path for cars to take probably 50% of the time. Building it up would require untold amounts of dirt and grading. It's not really feasible.

I agree, it's nice to be able to get to the back of the building from the front like we have it now but that has a bad side to it as well. There's usually many cars blocking access to the shop from the front (east) so in bad weather, I either have to move two cars or (more likely) just work on them in the parking area and walk back and forth for tools.

Maybe there's no one best solution to all this.

 

[mesquiteforge]

Not to be negative nancy-but I have seen quite a few barns burn over the years from hay-especially round bales-catching fire. Having the hay storage completely separate is a good idea-having the wall between the hay storage and everything else is a great idea if it all has to be in the same building. If funds allow-providing good ventilation in the hay storage is also a key addition( with sealed bearings on any fans/motors). Also-if you intend to do any welding or torch work in the shop-be sure that they wall between the shop and hay storage is sealed well enough that no stray sparks or heat will find its way to the hay.

 

[coljar]

I know this might not be an option, but these guys are right about not storing the hay in the same building. I never lost a building to fire from hay spontaneous combustion, even though I've witnessed it, but I've had mice and snake problems due to the hay.

 

[twosocks90]

I too am concerned about storing hay in there but for right now, there's no other option. Part of the motivation for doing this project is to build the interior walls to separate the hay from the rest of the area especially the shop area.

Any more feedback about the floorplan itself?

 

[buffaloguy89]

Can you have the shop against the south and east walls with parking next to that against the east and north walls, your lawn and garden area could go west of the shop along the south wall and the West part of the shop would be hay storage?

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[D rock]

What about building a lean to for your hay? My in laws farm, and that's where they keep hay (about 100+ round bails).

You'd have hay/tractor/vehicle storage, and when you needed to maintain or repair something the shop space would open to do so.

Not to mention, you could heat the inside of shop and not worry about setting the hay on fire.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Most of us around here store their round bales outside, but we don't get a whole lot of snow around here. I have 100 bales stacked out in the pasture with cattle panels around it and feed two bales at a time from it in the feeders.