If you are building a new farm shed, you probably have a few questions about shed designs and plans. A common question is, how high should I build my shed?
This is a really good question as it is important to get details like the required height for your shed, in the design stage. While a shed can easily be extended with extra bays in the future, increasing the height is not so straightforward!
How High Should I Build My Shed?
Here is a quick guide to help you decide how high your new shed needs to be. This article discusses best practice height options for hay sheds, machinery sheds, shearing sheds, sheep yard covers and cattle yard covers. We hope this article helps, and remember our building consultants are more than happy to visit site to make sure every detail is considered.
Hay Shed Height
The height of a hay shed is mainly governed by the capacity of the equipment that the farmer uses to load/unload their shed:
Those that load their shed with a front-end loader, are generally limited to stacking the big square bales up to six in height (or four round bales) – to accommodate this, a shed height of six metres would be required (or 5.25 metres for round bales).
With a telehandler though, big square bales can be stacked in excess of eight bales in height. However, it is obviously of utmost importance to put safety first when stacking bales this high.
Other common eave heights when storing big square bales, are 6.75 metres (seven bales high) and 7.5 metres (eight bales high).
Machinery Shed Height
For most cropping operations a minimum of six metres is required so that there is enough clearance for machinery such as air seeders.
If you intend to install roller doors or sliding doors on your shed, you will have to allow an additional 500mm (approx.) to your required clearance height to allow for the sliding door beam or roller door drum.
Shearing Shed Height
The most common height for shearing sheds is 4.2 metres.
The reason for this is that most raised boards sit at 1.2 metres above the concrete wool room floor, so a height of 4.2 metres allows for a minimum clearance height of 3 metres from the top of the shearing board, to the underside of the roof. This makes for comfortable shearing conditions for shearers and ensures sufficient sliding door clearance heights on to the board.
Sheep Yard Cover Height
The eave height of most sheep yard covers tend to be within the 3 metre to 3.5 metre range.
It is important to allow sufficient height for a tractor to clean out the yards, but at the same time not allow too much weather to come into the yards. Please keep in mind that the depth of the trusses will impact on the clearance height throughout the cover though.
Cattle Yard Cover Height
Most common eave height would be between four metres and five metres. Ensure enough clearance is allowed for a tractor to clean out the yards, and lift cattle out of the crush if required.
We hope this article helps give you an idea of what height your new shed build needs to be. If you would like to discuss what height would work best for your shed with a building consultant, call us on 1800 68 78 88.
If you found this article useful, check out our Learning Hub for articles on bay spacings and design options like girder trusses and canopies.
