80x80 Farm Equipment Shed

The estimate at 80x80 moves with four computed quantities: 6,400 square feet of floor, 320 feet of perimeter, 4,480 square feet of wall and 6,597 square feet of roof. Everything else is site and specification. Interior divisions are the last decision that should be fixed, because they are the first one that usually changes.

The lock-up carries wall, door, floor and probably power, so it costs disproportionately more per square foot than the open bays beside it. That is a reason to size it honestly, not a reason to omit it.

• how many sides are enclosed
• bay width set by the widest implement
• drive-in height across the open face
• the surface machinery drives on at the bay line

This page is ordered around the floor itself, because at 80x80 the 6,400 sq ft available decides what a equipment shed can hold before any other consideration applies.

The footprint holds 15 shelter bays — 5 across by 3 deep — and the remaining 8 feet is marginal: there is no closed end, so small valuable items travel back to the house or the workshop every evening.

Read this footprint through its span. 80 feet across is the fixed constraint; 80 feet of length is the negotiable one, and at 1 to 1 the building is close to square, so movement runs in both directions. Ground conditions and drainage decide the floor before the frame does.

An equipment shed is a light shelter rather than an enclosure: it is planned around getting a machine under a roof and back out again with nothing in the way. It is reached frequent and unplanned during a working season, often without dismounting to open a door. A 80 by 80 footprint is a near-square plan: 6,400 sq ft enclosed by 320 ft of wall, at a 1:1 length-to-width proportion. Along its 80 ft dimension it takes 3 runs of shelter bays at 24 ft, leaving 8 ft over — the 8 ft is where the argument about this size actually happens. Taken purely as arithmetic, 80 by 80 gives 5 shelter bays across the 80 ft dimension once 0 ft is reserved for movement, and 3 deep along the 80 ft dimension. Run as a an open shelter with a small closed lock-up at one end, 5 ft across is below the 16 ft this use needs to be worth planning, so there is no closed end, so small valuable items travel back to the house or the workshop every evening Snow and wind loading for an open structure are engineered for the site by the supplier rather than assumed from the shape.

At 80x80 the operating question is a specific one: how much of this footprint has to be closed, and how much is better left open? That is a different question from the one a equipment shed of another shape has to answer, and it is why this footprint is planned as an open shelter with a small closed lock-up at one end rather than as generic covered area.

What it holds is tractors, trailed implements and yard machinery that are wanted quickly and tolerate being cold. The shelter arrangement this footprint could equally be run as is an open-front shelter where machines back in and drive straight out: there is no sheltered end bay, so everything under the roof is equally exposed to whatever the open side lets in. The split is deliberately uneven — most of the length stays open, and the closed end takes only what genuinely needs a door. Letting the closed end grow is the failure mode, because each foot of it removes an open bay and adds a door to open.

Treating the last 8 feet as a room is the recurring planning error at 80x80: there is no closed end, so small valuable items travel back to the house or the workshop every evening. Neighbouring buildings, setbacks and the approach road often decide the orientation before the plan does.

The 5 feet of spare width runs the whole 80-foot length — 400 square feet of wall strip. It earns its keep as shelving, staging or a walking route, not as another shelter bay. The plan should survive the day the largest item the operation owns has to come inside.

The longest internal travel on a 80 by 80 plan is about 113 ft corner to corner, and the shortest useful one is the 80 ft cross-run. For a an open shelter with a small closed lock-up at one end that matters where shelter with secure store sits, because shortening the 80 ft run to serve it lengthens every trip along the 80 ft dimension. An open side is a design decision about weather direction, not an omission. The perimeter is partly open — an open front or three sides, so the roof does the work and the walls only break weather. That movement pattern, not the 6,400-square-foot total, is what decides whether the leftover 8 feet is useful here.

Nominal bay division computes to 4 bays at about 20 feet, wider than the 15-foot module — so a position can sit inside a bay without a frame line splitting it. A leftover strip earns its place only when something is deliberately put in it; otherwise it is circulation with a nicer name.

Depth here creates a hierarchy: 3 rows means front positions get used and rear positions get filled. Deciding which is which up front is what keeps 80x80 workable. The corner nobody plans for is the one that fills first, which is an argument for planning it.

Open bays extend easily; the lock-up does not, because it is bounded by a wall on one side and bays on the other. If the closed space is likely to grow, place it at the end of the run that has ground beyond it.

Configured as an open shelter with a small closed lock-up at one end, 80x80 is judged on whether the 15 shelter bays it holds match the operation, and on whether the 5 feet of spare width leaves the route this mode depends on.

• Does the work need racking or work zones on both sides with a full vehicle lane down the middle, or does it need a second lane that this 80-foot span cannot give?
• Is the 80-foot length being bought for depth, or for the repeated bays — six to eight repeated bays, and the bay line becomes the organising device for the whole plan?
• Which side needs to stay open, and which side faces the weather?
• Does the bay width suit the widest implement, folded or unfolded?

The 80-foot gable can carry 5 openings, one per shelter bay, with 5 feet of wall left for piers between and beside them — the arrangement that keeps each position independently reachable. Plan the exit as carefully as the entrance; buildings are emptied under more time pressure than they are filled.

The open bays and the lock-up door are different kinds of opening with different requirements. The lock-up door should be reachable without walking through an occupied bay, which usually means placing it on the gable or on the flank rather than the open face.

The stored configuration carries a 14-foot eave and computes to 24 feet at the ridge on a 3:12 pitch — a 10-foot rise across 80 feet. Height is therefore not uniform, and the sidewall is the constraint. What the building holds in its busiest week is the honest brief; the rest of the year is slack.

Height on a 80 ft span is a separate decision from the 80 ft length, and it is the span that sets the frame's behavior. Raising the eave over 6,400 sq ft affects every bay along the 80 ft dimension, so the test is whether shelter with secure store genuinely needs the extra clear height or only the floor area.

Ventilation across 6,400 square feet at this height: an open-sided structure is naturally ventilated, which is part of why it suits machinery that arrives wet or hot.

• 40x70 moves the count from 15 to 6 shelter bays (2 across by 3 deep), which is the reason to choose between them.
• 30x100 moves the count from 15 to 4 shelter bays (1 across by 4 deep), which is the reason to choose between them.
• 50x60 moves the count from 15 to 6 shelter bays (3 across by 2 deep), which is the reason to choose between them.

Because this footprint is planned as an open shelter with a small closed lock-up at one end, the useful next reads are different from the ones a differently shaped equipment shed suggests: shelter with secure store, lock-up sizing, pedestrian access to shelters.