Are you a horse lover with a folder filled with horse barn ideas? Maybe you have a dedicated Pinterest section? Wherever you store the ideas, we have a few more for you and offer some aid choosing a color.
Do you want your dream horse barn to stand out, match your existing property styling, or reflect your personal touch? Peak Pole Barns and Manufacturing has a Pole Barn Color Visualizer you can use to choose your barn colors. Change the color and texture of the roofing, siding, and wainscoting until you find the right combination. Besides a great color combination, what else should you consider when thinking about a new horse stable?
The Bigger The Stall, The Better
Whether a much-loved pony, workhorse, or expensive racehorse, they deserve a comfortable stabling environment. Are you going for a standard sized stall, or have you read the research on rethinking the box stall by housing small groups of horses in a larger stall? Whatever the choice, the reality is that horses need space to turn around and lie down comfortably.
If you are in the habit of saddling the horses in their stalls, you will know how much more space is required. And then, of course, the stalls for foaling mares and those used for a sick bay should be bigger.
Rather Too Many Stalls Than Too Few
While you plan for the perfect structure, add an extra stall or two as you could be expanding in future. After all, there might be a pony available at just the right purchase price that fits in perfectly with your pony club. If you don’t have immediate funding to build more stalls, create a design that allows for future expansion. At Peak Pole Barns, we get a surprising number of homeowners coming back to us to expand the space. It’s certainly more cost effective to build it right the first time around.
Ample light is always a necessity in stalls and horse barns. Install windows or dutch doors to bring natural light into the building and use agriculturally rated LED lights for the barn aisle.
Add A Washing Station
Sometimes it is just not possible to spray the horses outside, especially during the cold Colorado months, and you need an internal washing station. Consider the following in your wash bay design.
- Don’t place it close to high traffic areas or make it too isolated.
- Is your bay waterproof?
- Do you have a non-slip floor with a drain?
- Is the bay sloped to prevent the horses from standing in water?
- Add a removable trap to your drain.
- Add infrared heaters to warm up the horses, especially in cold weather.
- Include enough shelves to hold all the cleaning supplies.
- Select an “over-the-top-washer” so hoses are not lying on the floor.
Use Proper Insulation
Insulation is an important part of barn design. Two ways to manage the temperature of a horse barn include natural ventilation and high-quality insulation. Proper insulation is cost-saving and lowers energy bills, but how does one choose insulation? Look at the R-value. The higher the R-value of insulation, the bigger its resistance to heat loss. Five areas that should be correctly insulated:
- Roof – if exposed trusses are part of your horse barn interior design, choose an insulation placed under the roof sheathing, and you might not need to insulate the attic.
- Attic – if you want a horse barn with an attic, insulate it as well.
- Walls – without wall insulation, heat will escape even if you have the best heating-cooling system.
- Perimeter slabs – insulate the perimeter to prevent heat from escaping around the building.
- Doors and windows – use doors with built-in thermal breaks and an airtight perimeter seal. Pole barn windows with multiple panes provide better insulation than windows with single panes.
Peak Pole Barns and Manufacturing is based in Colorado Springs and specializes in providing a complete building solution, from concept to finished construction. We understand pole barns and our crews have constructed countless post frame buildings around Colorado for decades. Have you been researching horse barn ideas and want to build a pole barn? Contact us today.