50x80 Hay Barn

This page is ordered around height and clearance, because at 50x80 the 16-foot eave limits a hay barn sooner than the plan does.

The footprint holds 6 shared bays — 3 across by 2 deep — and leaves 20 feet of depth for a separation strip between the stacked end and the parked end that keeps chaff, dust and fuel apart.

Read this footprint through its span. 50 feet across is the fixed constraint; 80 feet of length is the negotiable one, and at 1.6 to 1 the building is long for its width, so movement runs front to back. The building is fixed for decades while the operation inside it changes every few years, and the plan has to survive that.

A 50 by 80 footprint is a clearly directional plan: 4,000 sq ft enclosed by 260 ft of wall, at a 1.6:1 length-to-width proportion. Along its 80 ft dimension it takes 3 runs of shared bays at 24 ft, leaving 8 ft over — the 8 ft is where the argument about this size actually happens. Mixed buildings are normal on a working farm and are rarely planned as such. The two uses have genuinely opposed requirements — one wants air movement and an untouched stack, the other wants a hard floor and frequent movement — and the plan should state which one is the priority. The apron outside carries as much of the operation as the floor inside; in a wet harvest it decides whether filling continues.

This footprint is planned as a shared building holding forage at one end and equipment at the other. Seasonal peaks fall at different times, which is what makes the pairing work: the equipment end empties as the stack fills. The plan should be drawn against the week when both are full at once. Forage goes in with moisture in it and changes condition after it is stacked, which is why air movement is planned rather than left to the doors.

Across a 50-foot span the 4:12 pitch adds 8.3 feet between eave and ridge. The centreline measures 24.3 feet; anything parked or stacked near a wall lives with the 16-foot eave. Neighbouring buildings, setbacks and the approach road often decide the orientation before the plan does.

Height on a 50 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 4,000 sq ft affects every bay along the 80 ft dimension, so the test is whether mixed hay and equipment storage genuinely needs the extra clear height or only the floor area.

Ventilation across 4,000 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.

The storage arrangement this floor tends toward in a heavy season is a wide-face store where most of the stack is reachable from the outside: the face has no covered strip, so anything staged in front of the stack is exposed and has to be moved the same day. Dividing the 4,000 sq ft by the 14 by 24 ft shared 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: what does storing forage next to machinery cost each of them?

Because 20 feet clears the 10 feet this platform treats as usable, the end of the run is a room rather than a gap: 1,000 square feet for a separation strip between the stacked end and the parked end that keeps chaff, dust and fuel apart. The floor treatment is a use decision that outlasts most of the equipment standing on it.

The 8 feet of spare width runs the whole 80-foot length — 640 square feet of wall strip. It earns its keep as shelving, staging or a walking route, not as another shared bay. Two operations of the same size can want opposite plans, so the arithmetic below is a starting point rather than a recommendation.

Seasonal peaks fall at different times, which is what makes the pairing work: the equipment end empties as the stack fills. The plan should be drawn against the week when both are full at once. Forage goes in with moisture in it and changes condition after it is stacked, which is why air movement is planned rather than left to the doors. That movement pattern, not the 4,000-square-foot total, is what decides whether the leftover 20 feet is useful here.

One opening per position works on this gable: 3 across 50 feet, with 8 feet of wall to distribute as piers. Splitting that margin evenly is what keeps the elevation buildable. The plan should survive the day the largest item the operation owns has to come inside.

The equipment end needs a wide door; the stacked end needs air and a working opening. Treating both as the same kind of opening is what makes mixed buildings underperform at both jobs.

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 shared bay per bay line, walls free of awkward half-positions. An empty building looks generous and a working one rarely does; plan against the working state.

With 2 rows deep, the rear row is behind the front one. Without a route past it, those shared bays become storage positions rather than working ones — the real cost of depth at this width. Ground conditions and drainage decide the floor before the frame does.

Mixed buildings almost always grow at the equipment end, because equipment is what accumulates. Reserving that end for extension keeps the stack undisturbed.

Configured as a shared building holding forage at one end and equipment at the other, 50x80 is judged on whether the 6 shared bays it holds match the operation, and on whether the 8 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 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?
• 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?

Quantities, not prices, are publishable here: roof cladding runs 4,216 square feet — 5% above the 4,000-square-foot floor at a 4:12 pitch — with 61.7 cubic yards of nominal slab beneath it. A leftover strip earns its place only when something is deliberately put in it; otherwise it is circulation with a nicer name.

Proportion drives cost here as much as size does: 260 ft of wall around 4,000 sq ft is 0.065 ft of wall per enclosed square foot, and a squarer plan of the same area would carry less. What moves the figure further on a a shared building holding forage at one end and equipment at the other is the fit-out mixed hay and equipment storage implies, along with framed openings and the height chosen for the 50 ft span.

• 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

• 40x40 holds the same 6 shared bays but changes the leftover depth by -16 feet, which is where the difference is actually felt.
• 36x48 holds the same 6 shared bays but changes the leftover depth by -8 feet, which is where the difference is actually felt.
• 30x60 holds the same 6 shared bays but changes the leftover depth by -10 feet, which is where the difference is actually felt.

Because this footprint is planned as a shared building holding forage at one end and equipment at the other, the useful next reads are different from the ones a differently shaped hay barn suggests: mixed hay and equipment storage, use separation planning, seasonal peak planning.