Has anyone built their own stables?

[Ali27]

My husband is moaning about the cost of building stables and thinks he can build them way more cheaply! I’m not convinced on his building skills being up to it, think it will take him too long and I’m not sure that he will be able to get the materials as cheaply as stable companies would!

 

[taranana]

Mine was the same so I let him start with a field shelter (which did take quite a long time) and then he built internal stables in the barn. I think they took him a couple of weeks but that was spending long days on it as he wasn’t working. The other thing to consider cost wise is that the price of timber has shot up in the last 9 months or so. Those price rises will also be borne by the stable companies.

 

[rextherobber]

My husband thought the same, but we ended up using a company, was loads cheaper and all done in just over a day. Very happy with them!

 

[milliepops]

OH built my nursery stables, currently configured as a run in shelter as we hacked it about to turn 2 normal looseboxes into a foaling box and now have taken the front off one box entirely.

Depends on general skillset i suppose, he's always building or welding or otherwise creating stuff Materials might not be that much cheaper unless you have stuff kicking about already but obviously labour costs are 0 if you DIY.

 

[poiuytrewq]

Depends what you want I guess!
My not overly practical oh built a stable and lean to hay shed.
It was my favourite stable! Bigger than the wooden ones we had paid for. It wasn’t pretty but did the job and he mostly sourced the materials round the farms.

 

[gryff]

Mine is going to build mine. Weve got quite high ambitions...an L-shaped block of two stables and a large store. In wood rather than block. I'm quite confident, I think ?. He's a Maths teacher, so at least all the angles and measurements will be spot on!
I'll let you know how they turn out.

 

[Wheels]

Yes my OH built my wooden stables, helped my yours truly plus his dad and my dad at various times. It was much much cheaper at the time than buying them ready made of the same quality of wood and it was fun.

My OH is very handy though, has built all sorts of stuff over the years

 

[J&S]

We have self built stables but from blocks not wood. Lovely and big and airy. The foot print was from three calf pens. My OH designed the whole to suit the prevailing wind and weather ( a very important point) and replacement concrete was laid to allow for good drainage (also very important). He made each stable door and the tack room door, that was stress ful to get the champhering right on the back supports, then backed the stable doors with marine ply and topped with steel. The wooden beams for the roof were quite expensive but the tiles we "reclaimed" from a house that was being re roofed in Plymouth. It has a hip roof to match the house and garage. He has done much bigger projects so I trusted him to get this right.
Wood is very expensive now, you might want to think about blocks.

 

[palo1]

I would always suggest block/brick rather than wood which is likely to deteriorate quickly, is nowhere near as hard wearing and will need maintenance. Block work is cheap (ish) quick and relatively simple and allows for better insulation too. If you can get a local builder to help set out the footprint you could then potentially do much of the labouring/construction yourself possibly with a bit of help. It will cost less to build something solid and decently sized now rather than find that standard wooden stables are too small/not versatile enough/deteriorate rapidly.

One of the best options would be to build a reasonable sized 3 sided block shelter that you could then use gates with ply over to make flexible stable partitions with. That is cheap and hugely versatile as well as more horse friendly than standard loose boxes.

 

[Parrotperson]

My husband is moaning about the cost of building stables and thinks he can build them way more cheaply! I’m not convinced on his building skills being up to it, think it will take him too long and I’m not sure that he will be able to get the materials as cheaply as stable companies would!

he wont get any materials at the moment and prices for wood etc have gone up at least 30% in the last three months. We've been waiting for ages for workmen to come but then cant get hold of enough materials for love nor money

 

[paddy555]

We have self built stables but from blocks not wood. Lovely and big and airy. The foot print was from three calf pens. My OH designed the whole to suit the prevailing wind and weather ( a very important point) and replacement concrete was laid to allow for good drainage (also very important). He made each stable door and the tack room door, that was stress ful to get the champhering right on the back supports, then backed the stable doors with marine ply and topped with steel. The wooden beams for the roof were quite expensive but the tiles we "reclaimed" from a house that was being re roofed in Plymouth. It has a hip roof to match the house and garage. He has done much bigger projects so I trusted him to get this right.
Wood is very expensive now, you might want to think about blocks.

yes block is far preferable. You may find OP that if you self build with block you will end up with much better quality stables than wood.
My OH built what you describe above for someone. They even had a cavity wall. The quality was superb compared to wooden stables. Slate roof. I coveted those stables. Lovely for the horses.

When considering `OP list the materials and make sure they are available. We struggled to get cement a couple of months ago and it took a while to buy any quantity. Timber has gone up considerably and some items are difficult to source. The stable building firms will presumably have to increase their prices to take into account timber uplifted costs.

Some builder's merchants are only selling items in short supply to account customers.

If you decide to go ahead then buy all the materials before you start. Nothing worse than sitting looking at half completed stables because you cannot source X and no one has any idea when you will.

 

[Keith_Beef]

I built the equivalent of a field shelter (two end walls and a back, with a sloping roof) for storing firewood; it's about 4 metres by 1.5 metres and 2 metres high at the front sloping to about 1.7 metres at the back.

The dimensions were dictated by the lengths of the planks, so I didn't need to saw them to length, which made the construction much quicker. No plans, minimal sawing, the whole thing, including converting the roof planks with roofing felt, took three days.

I didn't bother pouring a concrete slab for it, though. It's been standing for maybe 15 or 20 years.

When my brother in law looked into replacing the existing garden shed next to it, he found that buying the timber would have cost almost twice as much as buying a flat pack kit for a shed.

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

Yes when we moved here 20 years ago my not exactly practical OH, with me as his assistant, built 2 generous size stables and a very good sized tack room in a block with breeze block and plastered over - new cement floors and pad outside. Lined galvanised sloping roof with overhang. We also made the wooden stable doors ourselves. We were very proud of our achievement, took a few weeks, but we were already retired so time was not an issue. I cant remember what the exact costings were, but I do know it costs us at least half of what our builder wanted to charge us!
I have to add we would never have managed the job so well without Humphrey the JR terrorist input as site foreman. One day went we went in for lunch, after 20 minutes or so he came wandering in through the back door with the cement trowel in his mouth. We knew immediately it must be time to get back to work! ?

 

[Ali27]

Thanks everyone for replies? I’ve told him that he needs to build me a field shelter first as a test run? Unfortunately the planning permission is for wood stables otherwise would get him to build in breeze blocks!