Hog barn conversion to machine shed

I have been looking at all options for adding farm equipment storage on the farm. My dad has a 33'x66' Lester's Hog barn built in the late 1970s with a 6' or 7' pit. The building is overall in good shape and I have heard of people taking these types of buildings, raising them up, and making them into machine sheds or hay storage. I would like to hear from those who have knowledge of this. How do you fill in the pit? Do you separate the roof/rafters from the wall panels and build up from there or do you frame in new walls? Looking for how-tos people have done and how cost effective it is. Thank you in advance.

How does the ground lay around the building??? Several of those older buildings have been turned into equipment sheds just by removing the slat floors and cutting out an end wall. Then make the pit floor the floor of the shed.

If not the cost of raising the building, when you include labor and materials, is close to just building a new building from scratch. Also a lot of those era of Lester building around here have structural issues. The pressed in panels that hold the trusses together have the teeth rust off of them by the hog dust and moisture combining to rust them. Thye are not structurally strong anymore.

I got a quote from one of the Local Mennonite builders. I can get a 40x60x14 building with two door openings build for $20K. I was planning for overhead doors. The sliding doors added $2000 to the cost.

I would put that money into a new building. On this hog building , before long you will see the siding and roof steel rusting through from the inside out.

I've been in a couple of hog barn conversions. Both were dug out , but you never get the stink out.

I would be concerned if the slat floor can support concentrated loads (heavy wheel loads) or if it is limited to distributed loads (livestock, hay storage, work shop, hobby shop, etc.). I think Lester Building is still in business in Lester Prairie, MN. www.lesterbuildings.com . They should be able to answer questions and maybe make some recommendations.

In its current condition with a low ceiling (7 to 10 feet?), the building is better suited to other uses than machinery storage, more like a wood working shop, tool shed, supply and chemical storage, possibly a car garage if the side walls can be opened and additional floor supports can be added from below.

Like JD Seller mentioned, opening the pit wall may be the best option for machinery storage. Is the concrete pit floor thick enough to support heavy concentrated machinery loads? Make sure you have enough slope around the site so that the driveway to the pit still slopes away from the pit floor. When a entrance slope towards a building, water constantly flows into the building leaving a wet floor, a humid building, snow drifts and iced up doors when temperatures are below freezing. Can you live with narrow 15 or 16 foot wide doors on only one end of the long pit?

I agree with muleman 51, It will always smell like a hoghouse and so will you. gobble

I would just get rid of it and put up a different building.

Had a farrowing house 24X36 I built in 1973. Used it till 2010. Filled the pits, used it for storage of small Ford and MF tractors. The smell never left. Burned it down last year. Every time I went in it, I thought I was farrowing sows again. Swede

That?s a deal on a 40 by 60 .
I just had a 40 by 64 Cleary with two 20 ft doors, one at each 40 ft end , translucent panels at top of 16 ft sides.. for $35,000.

It will always smell like a hog shed.

I have a Lesters that I use for storage of cars, etc. I don't think you can lift the building because the walls are not really stud walls, they are 4x8 sections that are plywood inside and out with styrofoam between. I filled in my gutters and cut a sliding door on one end. I scrubbed and painted it and there is no hog smell. I have less than $1000 in that one , 24 x 64. I have another pit building that I also converted, busted out the slats and filled pit with dirt and old concrete chunks, gravel, then poured over the top. That one has no interior finishing or insulation and I did not paint the inside, so yes, it still smells like hogs 30 years after the last hog left ! It is a 30 x 60 and I have around $3000 into it. Of course the low ceiling limits its usefulness but still cheap storage. Yours looks in nice shape,, but if you have to lift it I would start fresh as others said.

I don't know anything about that brand of building, but if it's like others have said I'd take it down, fill the pit and use the pad to put a new building on.

I think I would put some hogs in it and direct market them. Getting to be good demand for them especially if you are close to large town. Then take the money from hogs and build a shed.

Agree, get a new building. Probably cheaper in the long run and you can build it to suit.

How do you fill the pit?

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