We just built a two stall goat barn. I called some local construction companies and asked them if they had any leftovers after jobs they could sell cheap. One company uses new wood for concrete forms every job and said they were just going to throw them away. So we got them, and plywood, and sheet metal donated also. Then a friend of ours wanted to buy our 4 wheeler, so we traded the work for the 4 wheeler. The only thing we ultimately had to buy was the screws and a door, hinges and such. One guy in the construction redid windows, and had some he just took out of a house, so we have windows in the barn too. Just call around and sometimes you can find some really good deals

Dont you have any Amish over there in Bucks Co.? Probably look in an area classifed/shopper type paper for a pole bldg. kit then double that price completed. Its hard to beat the price of the packaged kits; they dump the thing right off on your site, all you need is a crew; course the site will need prepped, (leveled, graveled, elec. water). Then stall materials, etc. I would bet reconstucting the old barn will cost a lot less.

Thanks for the info!

We're a little bit far from Amish country, unfortunately. I think the biggest difficulty with this barn will be finding a contractor who's willing to work on it. There's a guy around here who restores barns, but it seems like he specializes in 150-old timberframe beauties, not 1970 ugly ducklings.

IÂm with ninapearl on this one. I had a 30 X 60 barn built by the Amish and Mennonites. Excellent workers and very fast with their construction.
My barn was completed in two days. The workers were not from this area; they traveled about 100 miles to my site. They were in a different time zone, they promised to be here early in the morning and I donÂt think they realized about the time or distance. Got here at ten in the morning and finished the first day about three in the afternoon, with a finished framework. Next day the same time period, ten in the morning, and a finished barn at three in the afternoon. Five years ago, this barn cost me $5,000, worth every penny.

We built one by ourselves, with help from a friend/neighbor, who also supplied the utility poles(he's a lineman for the rural electric co-op. 60x40, with a 16-ft shed running along one side, so I guess it's actually a 60X56. Room for five 12-ft stalls along each side, a 16-ft barn aisle, and five 12x16 bays on the shed. We closed in two stall sections to make a tackroom(with lights & water), and have a floored loft area over the downhill side, the full length of the barn. We put a 3/4" plywood or OSB panel up behind the sheet metal for the first 4 ft of outside wall, just to cut down on the possibility of a horse kicking through and cutting their leg off(it happened to one of the neighbor's horses). Total materials cost was about $8,000. Took us close to a year to complete, working weekends.

Sooo, how would a person go about finding and getting in touch with an Amish or Mennonite barn building crew? I believe there are some Mennonite communities in Tennessee, within 100 miles or so of us...

this is our finished barn. we couldn't be happier with it! i would think if you check with some of your area feed stores, they may be able to direct you to an amish or mennonite settlement. they are wonderful people to deal with, very hard working and as honest as the day is long.

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This may be a longshot, but the Bucks County Tech High School does a large project a year with the students, according to a friend of mine. Perhaps you can inquire with the school about possibly selecting your rehab barn/a new barn as an offsite project, or perhaps they can give you some economical alternatives.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bucks County Tech High School

Hmmm, all interesting ideas. We've got a large Mennonite church a few miles away, I wonder if I could contact them directly about barn building. And the Tech High School link is intriguing.

One thing occurs to me about building new... I wonder if our setbacks still qualify. The barn is a good 200 feet from any property line, but I've heard about very restrictive agricultural-building covenants being enacted across the river in NJ, specifying manure pile locations and the like. I heard of someone with several acres who was unable to build a barn because their lot was long and narrow. Getting permits to build might be opening a can of worms.

We built our 32 x 36 barn last year. And are still working on it. We have 3 horse stalls in, and JUST did the floors last week. Our base price was $11k, and it turned into a horror story before we got the roof on. Had to bring in 2 more contractors, one to fix the damage to the landscaping and one to finish the water, electric, roofing, put on the doors, etc.

I think we are at $13k, curently buying rough cut lumber from the Amish and my Dad and I doing the bulk of the work ourselves while my DH is at work.

My only advice is to hire someone who is going to do the work correctly and not rip you off. Pay them more if you have to. We found the expense was having to pay for the same work twice, and the stress of being ripped off wasn't worth what we "saved" on the original job.

I have a web site that shows what we went through:

Here is a link that might be useful: Jordan's Croft home page

i built a new barn last year it's 46 feet wide and 36 feet deep it has a loft thats 12x36 for hay. its made of rough lumber and it cost about 5 grand.5 horse stalls and a feed room.

Have you checked into metal buildings?

I'm not too keen on metal buildings because of the noise factor. We put a metal roof on the existing barn, and it's LOUD during rainfall. The sheep panicked during the first big storm after the new roof went on, and I had to go out there in the middle of the night to calm them down. They're used to it now.

Wow, dumas, that's a great price.

I work at a company that manufactures steel roofing/siding material. I also have several pole barn structures of my own so I know what you mean about the noise factor. If you put some sort of underlayment on the roof, like waferboard, and then put the steel over it then you won't have the noise problem. The noise comes from the rain hitting and 'PING'ing the steel, with the board under it you won't have that problem. :-) I have a steel rood done like this on my kennel and I can't even tell when it is raining when I am in there.

I can't remember the exact reason, but the roofers couldn't insulate under our new metal barn roof. Maybe it was too expensive. My husband was in charge of that project, so the details are hazy to me. Come to think of it, we have metal roofing on our breezeway, over plywood, and it's completely quiet. The garage is another story... uninsulated, and standing inside there during a rainstorm is like being inside a gigantic metal drum. Deafening.

Updating this thread for 2014 we just finished a 24' x 36' timber frame hay barn at the school where I work. One of the biggest things impacting the cost of a barn is what type and quality of materials will be used. Our barn was designed to be highly detailed and have traditional aesthetics and came at a slightly higher cost of $75/sq ft..

It featured:
- board and batten white pine siding
- standing seam metal roof
- timber frame truss ends
- copper cupola and weathervane
- permacolumn post footers

The approximate cost of $75/ sq. foot included the stone veneer and crushed stone floor.

This was built in Baltimore County Maryland

Here is a link that might be useful: Custom Amish Hay Barn

@quackquack: That's one nice barn. Is it made of heavy timber with mortise and tenon joints? As for the price, when you say $75/SF do you mean $75*24*36 = $65K... or $75/SF of combined floor surface area?