Pole barn height

[joeb1kinobe]

Building a pole barn over our trailer. What are opinions on pole barn height to allow room to work on roof or ac units? How many feet above trailer?

[moose074]

If I was working on roof I would want to stand straight up not be hunched over. At least your height plus a few inches

[Oaklevel]

I would make sure the pole barn would fit the largest / tallest RV made if yours isn't, as we do not know what your RV is. ( You could get a bigger RV in a few years?) Plus working space.

[Creedmore P Crawley]

We built a Pole Barn in the Fall of 2021, mainly for storage. The largest stored item is a 30’ Class C with an actual height of 10’ 9”. After a lot of looking at barns and talking to owners it was clear that no one has ever said “I wish that barn was just a few feet smaller.”

We went with 14’ walls and 12’ x 12’ overhead doors. Certainly not enough head room to walk upright but plenty enough for working on the roof, air conditioner etc. A Class C is very comfortable for the type of travel we do.

However, although it will never happen, if a much larger rig was in our future, we could put in larger doors… going higher to the full 14’ wall height and because we are on a hill we could excavate the floor and go deeper.

A full walking upright height above the RV would be nice but we opted instead to go with a full 2nd floor loft, for more usable storage.

[PhilFromMaine]

Originally Posted by moose074

If I was working on roof I would want to stand straight up not be hunched over. At least your height plus a few inches

2x

Plus, lower roofs are safety hazards. The number of people who unthinkingly end up standing up and striking their head on the trusses or collar ties and falling off the roof is significant.

[BehindBars]

Originally Posted by joeb1kinobe

Building a pole barn over our trailer. What are opinions on pole barn height to allow room to work on roof or ac units? How many feet above trailer?

The first consideration in pole barn height is the height of the door. In order to have standard radius curves on the overhead door rails, we went with 14 foot barn sidewalls and 12 foot high door. We can fit our class C Motorhome just fine, but most class As will not. We knew we would not likely ever buy an RV taller than 12’.

You didn’t mention if you intend to have an interior ceiling or open trusses. If the inside is all open framing, like ours, there is plenty of room inside to stand up above the 14’ wall height.

In 20 years of storing the RVs in a pole barn, I’ve never needed to service the A/C, so it would certainly not be a consideration for me in designing the building. I did recoat the roof and replace the vents on our old RV, and there was ample room to work on top of an 11’ high motorhome in a 14’ sidewall building, because there was no finished ceiling in the barn.

Lastly, you could maybe just do your RV roof work outside, for no more often than it should be needed.

[nvs4602]

I built a 14ft high building with scissor trusses. This gave me a 17+ ft high ceiling in the center of the building. I have no problem walking on top of my class C. I have a mezzanine in the back for storage and was able to have 8ft ceilings under it and still had plenty of room to stand on top.

[Sunseeker16]

The storage unit I rent is 13wx42dx16h with a 12wx14h door. I was doing some work on the roof and found out I need to pay closer attention to the door when it's open. Small goose egg. It's doeable at that height if you are careful.