I am about to put up the first building on my new property. It will be a simple covered hay shed. I am looking for issues to look out for before I start. I figured many minds will have many screw ups to warn me about.
Check where/which direction the wind comes from. Do you want sun exposure? How much rain/snow the area averages each month. Check drainage. Local zoning. Frost line. Access (where it is, where you might like to build in the future, what the view is you are blocking).
Brings back fond memories - I placed mine with the door facing south. It is almost completely covered by trees and virtually invisible from Google Earth, not an easy accomplishment in Arizona. The chosen site was not level. To move enough earth to make it so would have been quite arduous and time consuming. So I built it on an elevated platform.
Hayshed - depending on the type of hay, make it tall enough that ifyou need to use equipment you can have some head room If your climate is wet you might need a floor or set up good drainage around the perimeter and slow the floor (whatever kind of floor you use) Last bit, know which direction the weather comes from, and put your solid wall there if you arent going to tarp TBH its difficult to know what to suggest when we dont know climate and intent. I have assumed hay storage but if you are using half for hay storage and half for parking a trailer that might change things.
Design the Roof so that is NOT a Wing, in high winds.... Otherwise you are likely to find it over in the next County, next time there is a Columbus Day Storm.... Yea, Remeber that storm... I sure do....
If practical, and assuming you may be handling heavy loads from time to time, installing an "I" beam to or just through the doorway (above head height) would allow a beam trolley. Which would carry any heavy items along the beam like sliding on ice. a chainfall would make loading and unloading, simple, safe, and much easier on your back. (Without need of any power equipment at all.
Access to the hay and the pathway to your servicing area for feeding... ensure your obstacles for ease of movement are accounted for. Make sure that you have the weather accounted for as others have said. And finally, Kell's I-beam solution is great for equipment maintenance or other heavy task & projects.
@fedorthedog more detail would be great. My vision of a hay shed is much different from a farmer. My first thought is build a place that could be used for hay and other things. I would love one of these- New Hoop House | Survival Forums
Have inner and outer walls. Hay tends to get pushed around and it's easy to shove a hole in a wall if you're using a Tractor to move it around. Have the shed at the highest place you have so as not to flood. Use Rain gutters and clean them once a year, if not done then sooner or later they will overflow down the side of your walls, inside and out and soak your hay. Pole barns can be made good or bad, have an experienced builder that understands the use, not that it is "just a Pole Barn". Steel post and concrete or best, Treated wood post are next best. If not in a limited access to stock then you will need a way to keep live stock from your hay.
Ok I am building a hay and equipment shed. One end will be closed on three sides for actual hay storage. the rest will be an open area for equipment storage. It will be outside of the fenced grazing area for live stock. This is southwest Washington so I need to keep stuff out of the rain and a nod to BT I was here for the 2006 storm with 100 mph gusts.
The only advice I could offer you is build it as large as you can afford, and if possible bigger then you think you will need. Every building I have built, I thought would be plenty big, until 6 months after it was done. The next building I build will be built with being able to build on to it in mind, no matter how big it is.
If you plan to store equipment, any tools etc. that you want to keep out of the weather to prevent rust and corrosion, then DO NOT have an open side, spend the extra grand or two or three for a tight fitting door or two. (might help with loss prevention as well.) A three sided shed is certainly far better than no shed but your stuff will still get wet and likely rust, a lot. The issue is changes in weather creating condensation which you will get in Washington. So, you have some cold days, your stuff cools down to those temps and then a warm humid front moves in. It can take 8-10 hours or more (depending on thermal mass and surface area) for your equipment to come up to the warmer ambient temperature and during that time moisture will be condensing on your toys just as if you took a garden sprayer to it. You can even get this near coasts with just the night coolness and then come morning the humid on-shore breezes pick up condensing water on the cooler equipment. If you want to protect from weather effects, the building needs to be pretty tight so you don't get a continual influx of fresh humid air that keeps depositing it's moisture on your toys. The more air tight the less corrosion you will get. That's why your new TV, lawn mower, etc. is packaged inside plastic bags inside the box; to prevent condensation when shipped or stored in non-climate contolled warehouses, trucks, trains, etc. AT
Make it as strong as you can afford and twice what you think the straight line winds may be in your area. More structual design/reinforcing pictures on the inside of the barn later. This was assembled over a year by family, much was prefabbed by me and then transported to the site and slowly put together. Angle bracing inside is the key to preventing the building from racking in high winds. This is a "post" on a shed roof end of the barn. Its is welded angle iron above ground and end welded to a 3 foot long sch 40 pipe x 3 inches, the 3 foot of pipe is in concrete.
