Skids For Small Barns

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We are building some small barns for our goats and chickens. They will be about 7 feet wide and 10 feet long. Need some ideas for skids so that we can move them around. Have built a lot of buildings but never used skids before.

-- Vicky Anglin (banglin@ucinet.com), March 30, 2000

Answers

I hope you have something other than human power available! I built a 6' x 8' "greenhouse" on skids. It doubles as a roadside stand for veggies, and as a covered shooting shed in the fall. The skids were 10' long 4x4 pressure treated timbers, cut to a "sled runner" profile at both ends, with 6' cross pieces of PT 4x4 at he ends. They were both (skids and crosspieces) notched to 1/2 depth to mate on the same horizontal plane. At 2' intervals between the 4x4 crosspieces, I used pressure treated 2x4s supported by metal joist supports. I overlaid this framework with rough-cut lumber and built my building on that. Before putting on the floor, I installed 2 through-bolted eyebolts to the 4x4 end crosspieces. First, however, I had a friend weld the eyebolt "eyes" closed so they wouldn't straighten out. I tow it to where I want it with a tractor and heavy chain with a hook at each end. Hope this helps. good luck!

Brad

-- Brad (homefixer@mix-net.net), March 30, 2000.


It is a good idea to build the small buildings on skids as here in Iowa they are considered not permanent and therefore not included in your property tax. We have a couple of larger buildings that the original owners of the farm had originally build on skids for that reason (you couldn't move them now if you had to). Most of our buildings used 4x4 or 6x6's.

-- beckie (sunshine_horses@yahoo.com), April 06, 2000.

We built a 12' x 16' barn on skids -- 2x6's with the ends shaped -- and hauled it a mile on a gravel road and it held up just fine. You will need something to pull your building with, though, as even a small building can be quite heavy (better be, or it might blow away in the next storm!).

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 12, 2000.

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