50x60 Hay Barn

This page is ordered around zoning across the 50-foot span, because that is the dimension a hay barn cannot change later.

The footprint holds 9 face bays — 3 across by 3 deep — and the remaining 2 feet is marginal: the face has no covered strip, so anything staged in front of the stack is exposed and has to be moved the same day.

Read this footprint through its span. 50 feet across is the fixed constraint; 60 feet of length is the negotiable one, and at 1.2 to 1 the building is close to square, so movement runs in both directions. The span is the commitment; everything inside it is rearrangeable later, and the 50-foot dimension is not.

A 50 by 60 footprint is a mildly directional plan: 3,000 sq ft enclosed by 220 ft of wall, at a 1.2:1 length-to-width proportion. Along its 60 ft dimension it takes 3 runs of face bays at 16 ft, leaving 12 ft over — the 12 ft is where the argument about this size actually happens. Taken purely as arithmetic, 50 by 60 gives 2 face bays across the 50 ft dimension once 10 ft is reserved for movement, and 3 deep along the 60 ft dimension. Run as a a wide-face store where most of the stack is reachable from the outside, 10 ft across is enough to be worth planning: a covered strip along the open face where a load can stand out of the rain while it is being sorted Ground moisture rising into the bottom layer is a floor and drainage question that is settled before the frame goes up.

At 50x60 the operating question is a specific one: is it better to have a shallow stack that is entirely reachable, or a deep one that mostly is not? That is a different question from the one a hay barn of another shape has to answer, and it is why this footprint is planned as a wide-face store where most of the stack is reachable from the outside rather than as generic covered area.

The storage arrangement this floor tends toward in a heavy season is a large-volume seasonal store filled in a burst and drawn down over months: unloading has to happen outside, which is the constraint that decides whether filling continues in poor weather. Dividing the 3,000 sq ft by the 15 by 16 ft face bay gives roughly 6 positions before circulation is deducted a second time for cross movement. Whether the plan keeps 6 or drops to 3 comes back to the question this footprint is really answering: is it better to have a shallow stack that is entirely reachable, or a deep one that mostly is not?

Treating the last 2 feet as a room is the recurring planning error at 50x60: the face has no covered strip, so anything staged in front of the stack is exposed and has to be moved the same day. Doors and their approaches decide more about daily use here than the enclosed area does.

The 5 feet of spare width runs the whole 60-foot length — 300 square feet of wall strip. It earns its keep as shelving, staging or a walking route, not as another face bay. The building is fixed for decades while the operation inside it changes every few years, and the plan has to survive that.

Because bays are independent, work is parallel rather than sequential: one bay can be filled while another is being emptied, which is the operating advantage this shape buys. Rodents and birds treat a forage store as habitat, and the eave and base details are where that is addressed. That movement pattern, not the 3,000-square-foot total, is what decides whether the leftover 2 feet is useful here.

The 50-foot gable can carry 3 openings, one per face bay, with 5 feet of wall left for piers between and beside them — the arrangement that keeps each position independently reachable. Ground conditions and drainage decide the floor before the frame does.

The frontage is largely open or repeatedly opened, which makes weather exposure the governing question. Which direction the face points at does more for the stored material than anything about the roof.

Loader-handled from the open side, with the working face moving as the stack grows and shrinks.

At 20-foot nominal bays the structure works with the layout instead of against it: one face bay per bay line, walls free of awkward half-positions. The floor treatment is a use decision that outlasts most of the equipment standing on it.

Two-plus rows change the access question entirely. Every rear position at 50x60 needs either its own opening or an aisle, and 5 feet of spare width is what that aisle has to come from. Two operations of the same size can want opposite plans, so the arithmetic below is a starting point rather than a recommendation.

Widening adds bays and preserves the arrangement; deepening changes the type of store it is. Extend across the frontage where the site allows it.

Configured as a wide-face store where most of the stack is reachable from the outside, 50x60 is judged on whether the 9 face 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 three lanes and a working lane, or two lanes with an interior work hall between them, or does it need a second lane that this 50-foot span cannot give?
• Is the 60-foot length being bought for depth, or for the repeated bays — five or six repeated bays, so functions are assigned bay by bay?
• What stack height do you plan, and can the loader place a bale above it inside the building?
• Which sides stay open for airflow, and which face the weather?

Across a 50-foot span the 3:12 pitch adds 6.3 feet between eave and ridge. The centreline measures 22.3 feet; anything parked or stacked near a wall lives with the 16-foot eave. An empty building looks generous and a working one rarely does; plan against the working state.

Height on a 50 ft span is a separate decision from the 60 ft length, and it is the span that sets the frame's behavior. Raising the eave over 3,000 sq ft affects every bay along the 60 ft dimension, so the test is whether wide loading face planning genuinely needs the extra clear height or only the floor area.

Ventilation across 3,000 square feet at this height: airflow through a stack is the reason many hay barns stay open-sided; enclosing them changes how the stored crop behaves.

• 30x40 moves the count from 9 to 4 face bays (2 across by 2 deep), which is the reason to choose between them.
• 24x50 moves the count from 9 to 6 face bays (2 across by 3 deep), which is the reason to choose between them.
• 32x40 moves the count from 9 to 4 face bays (2 across by 2 deep), which is the reason to choose between them.

Because this footprint is planned as a wide-face store where most of the stack is reachable from the outside, the useful next reads are different from the ones a differently shaped hay barn suggests: wide loading face planning, bay separation, open face orientation.

No price appears on this page. The quantities that scale an estimate at 50x60 are 3,000 square feet of slab, 46.3 cubic yards of nominal concrete, 3,520 square feet of wall cladding and 3,092 square feet of roof cladding. Neighbouring buildings, setbacks and the approach road often decide the orientation before the plan does.

Frontage is expensive: door openings, a long apron and the frame at an open face all cost more per foot than a closed sidewall, and this shape maximises exactly that element.

• eave height set by handling clearance above the stack
• how many sides remain open
• the apron the loader and trailers use
• roof drainage over an open working face