Folding Door Fitted To Remodeled Dairy Barn

Folding Door Fitted To Remodeled Dairy Barn BUILDINGS New Techniques “We no longer had a use for our old 30 by 50-ft dairy barn It needed to be rebuilt but we wanted to keep the barn’s original look As part of the remodel we fitted it with an 18-ft wide accordion-style folding door that’s 14 ft high That’s big enough for our combine equipped with a 6-row corn head ” says Verne Schlueter Arlington Minn “We had to add heavy duty trusses so we could raise the hay mow to 14 ft high enough for big equipment We also re-sided the barn and installed a metal roof ” says Schlueter “The barn was built for dairy cows in 1912 In the 1970’s we converted it into a farrowing barn and added an 18 by 50-ft lean-to hog nursery on the west side By 2000 the barn was no longer used and provided very little storage space “We thought about tearing it down and building a big shop but then got quotes from contractors and found that installing a new roof would cost much less than tearing the barn down “The posts on the east side of the barn were retained along with the hay mow floor This 6 by 50-ft area has an 8-ft high ceiling and gives us room for work benches and all our other shop tools including a drill press and welder We removed the posts in the rest of the barn It now has a 14-ft ceiling after we added the heavy duty trusses “The 18-ft wide bifold door is built in 4 1/2-ft wide sections It consists of 2 bifold doors that manually fold sideways like closet doors Because of this design we didn’t have to hang anything on the front end of the barn and put stress on the trusses If we would have used a conventional hydraulic-operated bifold door we’d have lost a foot of head space Our Case IH 5140 combine’s 6-row corn head just fits through the door We had Crown Door in Plato Minn custom build the bifold doors for us ph 320 238-2616; www crowndoors com “We installed a new concrete floor that slopes toward the center and installed a drain and holding tank for the water so we can wash equipment inside the building We re-wired the barn and installed 2 banks of lights on the 14-ft ceiling We also added a bathroom in the nursery lean-to that makes use of the hog nursery’s original manure holding tank “We hired contractors to install the new trusses and roofing but did the rest of the work ourselves Our total cost to remodel the barn was more than $20 000 but a new shop of comparable size would’ve cost $60 000 to $70 000 or more ” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Verne Schlueter 25804 431st Ave Arlington Minn 55307 ph 507 964-5641; cell ph 320 510-2453

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