Open Pole Barn Buildings: Layouts, Sizes and Costs

Open Pole Barn Buildings: Layouts, Sizes and What They Cost

An open pole barn is a metal post-frame building with walls on some sides and one or more sides left open — a gable end, a full eave side, or both, depending on the layout. It is not the same building as a roof-only pole barn, which has no walls at all, just a steel roof on posts. An open pole barn keeps some wall coverage; it simply leaves at least one side clear for drive-through access, airflow or loading.

That open side is a design choice, not a shortcut. The framing under an open pole barn still carries the same roof, wind and snow loads as an enclosed building of the same size. The walls that are there do less work holding the structure together than they do keeping weather and wandering livestock out. What changes with an open layout is how the building gets used: equipment drives straight in without a door to open, and animals move freely between shelter and pasture.

This page covers the layouts an open pole barn actually comes in and what each one is used for. It also covers sizes and pricing, and the permitting and siting questions that come up before the slab is poured.

What Makes a Pole Barn “Open”

The difference between an open pole barn, a roof-only pole barn and a fully enclosed building comes down to how much wall coverage the frame carries. A fully enclosed building has walls on all four sides, with doors and windows cut into them. A roof-only pole barn has no walls anywhere — just a steel roof on posts, covered separately on this site because it is a different building with its own search terms. An open pole barn sits between the two: it keeps wall panel on some sides and leaves one or more open, which is what most people picture when they search for a pole barn they can drive equipment straight into.

Which sides stay open is the actual design decision, and it is driven by how the building gets used rather than by a fixed rule. A building used for hay and equipment storage usually leaves the long eave side open for drive-through access. A building sheltering livestock more often leaves a gable end open, so wind-driven rain has less of a straight shot at the animals inside. Both are open pole barns; they are simply framed for different jobs.

It helps to think of the three buildings as points on a scale rather than three unrelated products. A roof-only pole barn sits at one end with no walls at all. A fully enclosed building sits at the other with doors on every opening. An open pole barn is the whole middle of that scale, and most working farms end up somewhere on it rather than at either end. Deciding how far toward “open” or “closed” to build is a question about which weather and which uses matter most on that specific site.

Common Layouts for an Open-Sided Pole Barn

Four layouts cover most of what gets built. A one-side-open barn keeps three walls and leaves the long eave side clear — the most common configuration for equipment and hay, because it gives the widest drive-through opening for the framing cost of one open wall. A gable-end-open barn keeps both eave sides closed and opens one end instead, which suits a narrower building or one where wind direction favors closing the long sides.

A three-sided barn — often called a loafing shed when it is sized for a small herd — closes two sides and the roof, leaving one full side and sometimes part of a second open. It is the layout most often built for livestock, since animals can come and go on their own schedule without a gate to manage. A lean-to open along one eave is the fourth pattern: a single-slope roof, closed on three sides, open along the low eave. It is a cheaper structure than a full gable barn, and a common way to add covered space onto an existing building rather than build a freestanding one.

None of these is a fixed floor plan, and none is exclusive to one use. The same one-side-open frame that stores a tractor also shelters a handful of cattle; the same three-sided frame built as a loafing shed can just as easily hold hay if the herd it was built for is sold. A supplier's engineered drawings set the actual post spacing and header sizes once a layout, a footprint and the local wind and snow loads are known. The four above are the starting point for that conversation, not a substitute for it.

Picking between them usually comes down to two questions: which direction does the worst weather come from, and does the building need to be walked into freely by animals or driven into by machinery. Close the side that takes the prevailing wind and rain, and leave open whichever side the daily use needs clear — a rule that covers most of the layout decisions this page gets asked about.

What This Layout Gets Used For

Livestock shelter is the single biggest use. A three-sided or gable-end-open barn lets cattle, horses or sheep move between open pasture and cover on their own. That freedom is why so many working farms build exactly this layout rather than a fully enclosed barn they would need to open and close. The open side also does a second job: it keeps air moving through the space, which matters more to animal health in an enclosed building than people expect.

Equipment and hay storage is the other major use, and it favors the one-side-open layout: a tractor, a baler or a load of round bales goes in without anyone opening a door first. Tractor barns and machine sheds on this site cover the fully specified versions of that use case — this building is the simpler, lower-cost option for an operation that does not need lockable doors or a fully enclosed shop.

A smaller version also works as a carport or an equipment lean-to beside a house or shop. Open on the approach side, it stays closed on the other three to block wind and blowing rain from the side that gets the worst weather. A hybrid use is common on working farms too: hay stacked along the closed back wall, with the open front left clear for a tractor to load and unload without threading a doorway every trip.

Open Pole Barn Sizes and What They Cost

These buildings are priced the same way every metal post-frame kit on this site is: by floor area, not by how many sides are open. Leaving a side open removes wall panel and a door, which can move the finished price toward the lower end of the range. The table below prices the kit itself, by size.

A 30×40 open pole barn suits a small herd or a single piece of equipment with room to walk around it. A 40×60 is the size most working farms land on for a mixed use of livestock and hay or a small equipment fleet. 50×80 and 60×100 are multi-bay buildings, usually built with more than one open side across separate bays rather than one continuous opening the width of the whole structure.

Installed Costs, Line by Line

The kit price above is the shell only. Getting it erected on its own slab adds concrete, erection labor, site work and permitting — the same line items every building on this site adds, priced the same way. The table below works a 40×60 shell all the way to an installed total.

That puts a 40×60 open-sided building, installed on its own slab, at roughly $19 to $52 per square foot of footprint. The shell alone, before slab and erection are added, runs $16,800 to $57,600 for that same footprint, depending on the frame and finish. A barn with fewer walls does not automatically land at the low end of this range — the frame, site conditions and local permitting move the number more than wall count does.

Removing a wall does trim the materials list a little — one less run of panel, one less set of trim — but it is a small share of what a kit costs overall. Most of the price difference between an open layout and a fully enclosed building of the same footprint shows up in labor and doors, not in the shell price shown here.

Foundations for an Open-Sided Building

An open side removes wall panel, not the foundation. Every post still carries roof, wind and snow load down to the footing. An open eave can see higher uplift and lateral wind pressure than an enclosed wall would, since there is nothing to block the wind before it reaches the posts. Footing design accounts for that in the engineering rather than by guesswork on site.

Footings still have to reach below the local frost line, and the International Building Code sets a 12-inch minimum footing width for footings supporting a wall (up.codes). The frost depth itself is set by the jurisdiction — commonly around 12 inches in the South and 42 inches or more in the northern US. A clear-span frame is what lets the open side span its width without an interior post breaking up the opening. The Metal Building Manufacturers Association notes that roof slope, not eave height, is what keeps a wide clear-span roof economical to build. (mbma.com)

A slab is not automatic on every one of these buildings the way it is on a fully enclosed shop. A livestock shelter is sometimes built on compacted gravel or a bedded pack instead, depending on the use and local drainage. A supplier's engineered drawings settle that along with the footing design, worth deciding before the site is graded rather than after.

Airflow and Why the Open Side Matters

The open side is not just a drive-through opening — it is what makes this layout work as livestock shelter in the first place. A closed barn with only door-sized openings relies on those doors being managed correctly to move air; an open-sided building moves air on its own, all day, without anyone doing anything. That matters most in warm weather, when trapped, humid air inside a closed building raises heat stress on animals faster than open shade does. It also matters in any weather, when ammonia and moisture from bedding need somewhere to go besides the airspace the animals are standing in.

The trade-off is that an open side gives up the ability to fully seal the building against wind-driven rain and snow. Orienting the open side away from the prevailing weather is one fix; closing the side that takes the worst of it and leaving another side open instead is another. Most working layouts split the difference between airflow and shelter this way, rather than choosing one over the other completely.

Roof pitch does some of this work too. A steeper pitch throws wind-driven rain further out past the open eave before it can reach the floor. That is one reason a barn built primarily for weather protection on the open side often carries more roof pitch than one built mainly for shade.

Permits and Where This Building Can Be Sited

A building like this is still a structure built to a code, and which code applies is decided locally, not by the building itself. Model codes such as the IBC are developed nationally and then adopted into law by the state or local authority having jurisdiction, which enacts its own ordinance to adopt the code by reference (iccsafe.org). That is why the same plan can be reviewed differently a few miles apart — a permit requirement should always be confirmed with the local building department rather than assumed from what a neighbor built.

Some counties give a farm building used solely for agriculture a shorter permit path than a garage or shop gets, but the size and use thresholds that trigger it are set locally and vary by jurisdiction. Setback from the property line, from a well or septic system, and from any road right-of-way are separate questions from the building permit itself. They are handled by the same local zoning office, worth clearing before a supplier finalizes the footprint, not after the slab is poured.

An open side does not change any of this. A local reviewer still looks at footprint, use and setback the same way for a three-sided barn as for a fully enclosed one; the missing wall is a design choice on the drawings, not an exemption from the process. An open, unconditioned building like this also generally sits outside the residential and commercial energy-code minimums written for heated space — the IECC governs residential construction and Standard 90.1 governs commercial. (energycodes.gov) That exemption is set locally too, so confirm it with the building department rather than assume it.

An open pole barn earns its keep by leaving the right side clear rather than by leaving out wall panel to save money. One side open suits equipment and hay; three sides open suits livestock; a gable-end or lean-to layout suits a narrower footprint or a smaller budget. The foundation, the framing and the permit process behind it are the same as any other metal post-frame building on this site — only the wall count changes.

Picking the layout comes before picking the size. Settle which sides need to stay open for the building's actual use, and which side needs to be closed against the weather that gives this specific site the most trouble. The footprint in the tables above follows from there, rather than the other way around.

The next step is a quote against the actual layout, footprint and site rather than a stock size. A quote sees the real site, the real use and the real framing choice — all three change the number more than anything on this page can. Bring the layout that fits how the building will actually be used, and the rest follows from there.

Related Resources

• Roof-Only Pole Barn
• Machine Sheds
• Tractor Barns
• Loafing Shed
• Farm Buildings
• Pole Barn Cost Estimator
• 3D Pole Barn Designer