The initial expense of a new horse barn will likely stretch any horse owner’s finances. Despite the option that larger construction companies provide with financing availability, not everyone wants to invest in a large horse barn.
Additionally, there may be factors, other than cost, that limit barn choices. For example: zoning restrictions or landscape/property features. Regardless of circumstances, everyone wants to enjoy the ‘best bang for their buck” when building their barn.
The Double Wide layout barn style offers a creative answer to some challenging barn building questions…
How can you solve the dilemma of building a budget-friendly horse barn that will serve multiple needs without making a major investment?
What’s the best barn/stable layout when space is limited or zoning is restricting height and square footage allowances?
The increasingly popular Double Wide horse barn offers functional solutions.
Modular horse barn companies have long offered shed-row style structures for horse housing that address some of these issues, and this style of building is very popular for many good reasons. But with hot sun and driving rain, the shed-row style cannot offer full protection from inclement weather and provides limited interior storage space for supplies and equipment or a place to groom and tack up a horse.
The Double Wide barn solves the issue by combining a shed row with the affordable enhanced shelter of a side aisle addition. This is achieved by an enclosed overhang construction that follows the long side of the barn on the stall-facing side of the shed-row.
The advantages of this simple modification are tremendous…
- The enclosed area makes cleaning stalls and other barn chores MUCH easier for you regardless of the weather. Wind, rain, snow, and ice stay OUTSIDE.
- The aisleway provides a relatively clean environment for your vet or farrier to work on your horse. Contamination from wind-blown sand or dirt and mud are greatly reduced if not eliminated altogether.
- Electric access can be conveniently on hand with outlets placed between each stall. Lighting can also be added in the aisle making it possible to work in the barn after dark. This is especially important during winter’s shortened daylight hours.
- Includes more secure, dry, ground level storage space for hay, feed, tack, and equipment.
The Double Wide layout is truly a blessing and may be the perfect answer to anyone whose property is small and/or restricted by challenging landscape features that need to be worked around.
Other advantages of this barn style are minimal site preparation (principally a level pad with support footers/sonotubes for the overhang pillars), quick set up and an attractive price point. You can easily see why the Double Wide a popular choice.
Thankfully the modular or prefab option is available for Double Wides. And it offers many advantages over an on-site build.
A modular building company will deliver the building in one of two ways depending on the configuration you choose…
- Two pre-built sections are delivered and joined on site. This alleviates the noise, stress, and time delays of having to wait on a pole or stick built construction project.
- One pre-built shedrow section with the overhang/’aisle’ section erected on-site/after delivery. The side walls beneath the overhang and at the gable ends may be enclosed entirely or partially enclosed creating the protected space for daily chores to be completed by equine caregivers, vets, or farriers to work, and storage needs for hay, tack, and equipment to be secure.
The key factor that makes the Double Wide stable layout so attractive from a financial standpoint is the simplicity of the design. The barn can be entirely functional with an aisleway available without the additional expense of a center-aisle design barn and as explained there are many times when a horse owner will appreciate its availability.
The double-wide design is also evidently an excellent barn choice as it provides the utility of a totally enclosed barn/workspace with a smaller overall ‘footprint’ if available space is limited.
There is the option to add sliding stall doors and grill stall fronts to increase ventilation and give the ‘feel’ of a center aisle barn. Installation of sliding ‘aisle’ doors with windows either on one or both, of the gable ends also gives the feel and utility of a ‘big boy’ center aisle barn in a smaller, sweeter package.
Property owners don’t always have the luxury of large wide expanses of land where a new barn can be situated. The Double Wide barn provides a valuable alternative design, which can be easily placed in a more confined area that may offer plenty of length but not enough width to accommodate stalls on each side of a 12’ aisle.
It is a design well worth considering if you’d rather pay less than a center-aisle barn will likely cost, but don’t want to compromise on enjoying the benefits that an aisleway will provide or if you have limited site options on your property that will dictate your barn choices.
Savings due to reduced site prep costs also apply when a Double Wide design is chosen over the standard center aisle barn. This is because the former requires fewer footers (*sonatubes). Additionally, less cubic feet of crushed stone/stone dust will need to be purchased and installed for a Double Wide site versus a standard Center Aisle barn construction. Eliminating the center aisle section saves money beyond the cost of the structural materials used for the build.
Aside from cost savings and the site match, another advantage of a Double Wide barn design is for breeding facilities, such as stallion barns. The horses are not able to see each other across the aisle, which can equate to a more harmonious environment for stallions, as there is less opportunity for intimidation or angst that can be created when stallions see each other ‘eye to eye.’
If you’ve ever found yourself racing to saddle up your steed in the rain, mucked stalls with Dutch doors being blown out of your hands in gusts of wind and been pelted with hail while figuring out where to put those hay bales, then doubling down on your investment with the Double Wide design might be the answer.
Double Wide barns can also be built with a second floor / loft and lean…
