I installed sliding man-doors on my barn and they're the best upgrade I ever made to the barn. The tracks make it so much more reliable and snow buildup in front of a swinging door can be an issue, and the sliders don't have a problem with it. I'm in NE Ohio, like you, and it's a real great installation.
I had a company build my shed 13 years ago and I told them I wanted a 10 x10 door put in my other door is 16x9.. so they put up 12 foot walls and I’m so happy they did the overhead doors work flawlessly and up til now , and the door is full 10 feet high.knock on wood I haven’t had an the damage you showed in your video. I do have the damage you showed on my garage doors by the house. What I do is put bait packets in the garage and it takes care of them I put two packets in the pole shed a couple years ago an they haven’t been touched. I don’t want sliding doors because of the snow we get here. I’m glad you are happy with your choice you made.
I'm a door installer. What I've seen, that I liked best was the concrete floor had a sharp pitch to it just at the doorway. So the slab in the barn is 1.5" higher than the driveway or approach outside. The bottom of the sliding doors can rest tight on the pitched concrete. I've also seen a 1.5" lip meaning the barn floor was 1.5" higher than the approach. The bottom of the sliding doors rest tight against this lip. Works great to keep out mice and weather but is a trip hazard. That lip was painted yellow.
I had the Amish build my 24x32x14 and they priced the doors the same but preferred to use overhead doors since it is faster for them. I have an older barn with sliders and they get stiff and hard to open with time as the slides rust or get weeds growing into them. One day I pulled one side a little too far toward the center and it took 3 men to lift it back onto the track. The new barn with the 13' door I can practically lift with 2 fingers using the spring. As to the mice, we have a cornfield behind us and they were a big problem for us and our closest neighbor until I adopted a big outdoor Tom cat. We were catching 5-6 in traps a week in our barns and garages and now we never see any. A $10 bag of cat food lasts 2-3 months, I feed him daily. Some days he skips the food totally when the hunt was good.
When I built my 3 car garage with a bonus room above it I used trusses like you did, when the town inspector looked at the trusses he said that I had to get the framing guys to come back and install 2x4's running from front to back to tie all the trusses together (about mid way up the "W" both sides). He said the reason was that in a bad wind storm all the trusses then can't be knocked down like dominos...I actually saw that happen in a news report on TV....He also said to make sure the nails don't banana out the sides of the trusses & use 2 nails per truss. You had the extra 2x4's left over...maybe that's what they were for? Thanks for doing all the work to get these video's onto youtube!
Nice building. Happy for you. One disadvantage to sloping doors me in Canada we het a lot of snow. If the snow is piled against the wall you have to shovel to get the doors open to get the tractor to clear the snow. So my dad put sliding doors on the inside of the wall. That works fine but you loose all that wall space. That’s why it’s overhead for me. It lifts up out of the snow. I do understand the height issue though. Enjoy your building. It looks good
I like the aesthetics the old time Barn door... Glycol bucket traps with peanut butter bait for the mice once it freezes up they'll stay in their nest it's only the fall where you got to worry
I really like your barn Sir. I too would have chosen the sliding doors. Most barns I see here in New England have sliding doors and not an overhead one. It's just the way it is. LOL. Congrats
Nice to see the barn is complete except for the floor. I like the sliding doors as you do not have the maintenance and upkeep with either garage or roll up doors. The springs will wear out. My vote is for the sliding doors. Nice color choice by the way.
I went with the overhead door. It has the bonded insulation and seals well to the opening. I also wanted the convenience of an opener. I park a vehicle beside JD in there.
Great build videos. That was an impressive crew to get all of that built in 1 day. One thing that caught my eye that i think will be a problem in the future....At 11:55 - 12:00 and again at 17:15 i saw a screw that prevents the door from opening too far, there has to be a better way. There should be a stop of some kind to prevent the door from coming off the track.
I have a farm pole barn with sliding doors. Inexpensive to put on compared to a roll up door, IME harder to keep in good shape and very hard to make weather tight. My new shop pole barn is getting a roll up door..not thrilled with the cost but need it to be weather tight.
Where can one purchase the end rails (the metal ones) that are on either end of the sliding door to keep the wood and metal sheeting together and smooth?
If you don't mind me asking, how much was the cost of labor for this project? Looking at constructing a very similarly-sized building to use as a house.
Initially we used Menards online project design. You design your structure and it gives you an itemized list with current prices. After much delay with our zoning board we know longer had the time to build ourselves and hired a contractor who took the design and ordered from his usual lumber supplier.
Supplier was a local lumber store. If you have a Menards nearby or just want an idea of material current material cost they have an online project center. You can design one, pick out doors, window, cupolas, etc. It’ll give you a material list and cost. That’s where I started.
At the time, 1 year ago. The pole barn was just shy of $17,000. The concrete pad was another $4,500. The materials if you were to do it yourself were around $12,500
You can design one on Menard's website. It will give you a layout, 3d views, materials, and cost. Even if you don't purchase it from them a good place to get a rough idea.