American barns - companies that make them!

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Conniemara1

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Who has an American barn? What company built it? Would you recommend them? Was planning permission more difficult than traditional stables? What would you beware of, and how much roughly did it cost? Thanks!
 
We have, no problem with planning, love being able to muck out, groom, trot up for vet, clip, tack up etc all indoors. Ours is 26m by 12m, 7 stables feed room and tractor/ hay storage end.
After lots of company quotes that were up close to £100k in some fancy horsey company cases !! I got a local builder to build it in block work - all it it was about £25k ish.

Make sure you make the walkway wide enough, if you're leading one past and the stabled once can reach over and nip you'll be regularly flattened. Make it high enough so you can get tractor in to deliver hay etc.
Think carefully about water location and (this is going to sound really stupid) have a drain under each tap (hence you need to know where they are going to be before laying concrete base). I was at a yard where the very expensive architect forgot this so there was always a small gutter of water outside everyones stable !!!
 
I agree with Polo's Mum look up for local Agricultural builders and get quotes from them.
We built a large barn 6 years ago, this is 33m x 16m. We have four 18' x 12' stables, an 8' aisle and the other part at one end is a large loose pen area which can be divided into two.
The other end is for storage, feed room and I have built two smaller stables.

As said above get in touch with 'horse' companies and they double the price!
 
I have a mini barn built by saltire about 4 years ago. Cost for the building supplied delivered and erected with some upgrades was about 12k. Four stables plus tack room, portal frame so could have the stables taken out if we sold the place and buyer wanted to use it for something else, extra heavy duty kick boarding, roller door, outer facing openings with windows in them so even if shut horse can look out.

Planning was I think easier with this design than loose box row as we are an agric holding and it looked more barn like and neater.

NB only thing I would warn against with actual agric barn people is that quite a few demand quite a bit of money up front and not all of them are above board tho 99% I'm sure are - we lost 6k deposit we paid for an agric barn - they had sold the same barn to numerous buyers .....- we all lost money and police were involved so beware, try to find a co that will take payment on delivery.

So with our mini barn stables we were very happy with saltire stables as they only wanted 25% before everything was made delivered and erected on site.
 
we have a fabulous barn built by JWS (they advertise in back of H&H) who were fab in helping get planning in a very awkward area, the barn was built perfectly to both time and financial budgets. We've been back for field shelters since :)
 
Thanks for your replies!! What did you all do ventilation wise on these different build types. Ventilation is a biggy for me as my pony has COPD, but I love the security of an american barn in that you can lock it up!
 
All of our stables have windows in the back wall (with adjustable plexi-glass grilles,so can be fully open for ventilation,or closed or somewhere inbetween!) and our electric roller shutter has a large (about 1.5metre deep and 3.5metre wide) ventilated section,for air circulation (and it works-fine snow was blowing in a bit last week!) At the apex of the roof,there's an open section,(slightly offset,so rain doesn't come in!)so air flows there too.
 
It was here when we bought our property,so no idea who built it I'm afraid:( Electric shutter is brill-secure,lets plenty of light in thru perforated ventilated part and is lockable. Important safety wise to have an alternative means of exit tho-next to shutter we have double wooden doors(in case of power failure) and another door at rear of barn(excellent in summer,as can open for a thru draught,tho we rarely need to.:)) Ours is essentially a big steel portal frame building,clad in timber for the top half and stone for the bottom,so blends in with other buildings.
 
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