A Guide to Choosing the Right Style for Your Horse Barn
Contemporary styles, matte finishes, and clean lines are all à la mode in horse barn planning and aesthetics. However, any barn construction guide will emphasize safety and functionality over the “wow” factor in your design.
The functionality of a barn depends on its accessibility, and integral to equine facility design is the stall door. Whether contemporary or Euro-traditional, hinged or sliding, or opening to the right or the left, a door’s safety and functionality are essential deciding factors.
Here’s an overview of sliding vs. hinged stall doors, the different practical and safety aspects of each design, and how both can deliver the aesthetic “wow” factor you’re looking for.
Overview of Sliding vs. Hinged Stall Doors
Stall doors come in one of two designs: sliding or hinged. The style that would best fit your barn depends on many variables, such as how the barn is used, traffic patterns, climate, and aesthetics. Here’s what you should consider when selecting your ideal stall door for your horse barn.
Sliding Doors
Sliding doors have a contemporary look with clean lines that can elevate the overall design of your barn. Because there is no door swinging open into the barn aisle, traffic moves faster through the barn, and there is less interference with cross ties. This makes sliding doors the perfect choice for busy facilities, such as training barns, horse boarding barns, and horse event venues.
Safety Features of Sliding Doors
Sliding doors have safety features that hinged doors do not. For example, a sliding door cannot get caught by the wind and injure a horse or human if left open. When leading a horse, sliding doors are easier to open and close.
For example, Sterling Equine’s plunger latch is extremely easy to use. It’s also easier to tell if a sliding door is safely closed. A hinged door can appear closed yet swing open, freeing a determined escapee. Sliding doors can be faster to open and close, making them preferable to hinged doors from a fire safety standpoint. Lastly, a sliding door can be slid shut in passing to avoid a petulant occupant leaning out to nip a passerby.
Functional Features of Sliding Doors
Sliding doors are functional. It’s easy to look down a spacious barn and see which horses are turned out and which are in their stalls. Sliding doors can be left open when horses are turned out for easier aisle management. Sliding doors require fewer steps to open and close, which makes them easier to navigate when a horse is in hand.
And don’t forget that your uber-exuberant Dutch Warmblood cannot jump over a sliding door, while the more sociable types can stick their heads out and chat to their neighbors through a yoke.
Sterling Equine’s Contemporary-Styled Sliding Doors
Sterling Equine’s sliding door track system features self-cleaning rollers with a lifetime warranty in case of sliding issues. Latch options are either flip, stainless-steel pins, or gravity latches. Our doors are customized to fit your barn design and are installed to slide to the left or the right.
Our doors are meticulously crafted to complement refined equestrian architecture. We have arches to top your door, either open, grill, or mesh tops, and open, straight, bent, mitered, arced, or Euro yoke designs.
We offer vertical or horizontal wood fill bottoms, and stall doors can be configured with name plates and shavings guards.
Euro-Style Hinged Doors
Hinged horse stall doors have a traditional European look. If you have the aisle space and prefer a timeless, elegant style, hinged doors could be for you.
Safety Features of Hinged Doors
When a horse is in a stall, an outward-swinging door allows the handler to easily enter and exit the stall without having to maneuver around the door or the horse.
Which way should your hinged doors swing? Hinged stall doors should ideally swing outward (away from the stall) to prevent potential safety hazards for both the horse and handler. If the door opens inward and a horse is agitated, it could trap the handler against the stall wall or cause injury if the horse rushes the door.
Functional Features of Hinged Doors
Hinged doors swing out into the barn aisle. Thus, you need a fairly wide aisle to accommodate the standard 48-inch-wide horse stall door and allow it to safely open and close.
If you have a wide barn aisle, hinged doors will work well. However, you will need to ensure the aisle is tempered and leveled. If the floor is uneven, the bottom of the door can get stuck. A general recommendation is one inch of space between the barn floor and the horse’s stall door. If your barn aisle has hills or bumps, hinged doors aren’t the best choice.
Hinged doors can be easily repaired if they malfunction. Sliding doors can run off their tracks and be a bit more complex to fix. Hinged doors use up less wall space than sliding doors because sliding doors need aisle wall space to accommodate the door when it opens.
Your horses can look over the hinged door and see their neighbor, although this is also the case with sliding doors if you install a yoke. If your water buckets and feed bowls are close to the door, you may be able to lean over and deliver food, hay, and water with ease.
Sterling Equine’s Hinged Doors for Euro-Style Tradition and Elegance
Our Euro-style stall systems blend timeless tradition and elegance with unmatched craftsmanship without sacrificing quality, safety, or functionality. Our stalls can be freestanding or built-in, and our door fronts are customizable. We have a unique plunger latch that won’t pinch fingers or cause a door to stick.
We primarily suggest our adjustable hinges, but we also offer heavy-duty barrel hinges for custom gates.
Our gates open low or high, and they can open to the left or right to suit your barn design. Our door tops can be high, straight, arched, bent, mitered, or low with a straight or arched yoke.
Our door bottoms have vertical or horizontal wood fills. We also offer polyethylene thermoplastic grill fill or steel mesh. We have a variety of top wing styles for a tastefully designed stall front: straight, bent, mitered, diagonal, and arced.
We also offer different feed designs: a feed hole, feed door, small swing out feeder, small swivel feed, large swing out feeder, or large swivel feeder.
We add the finishing touches to your hinged door stalls with finial cap styles in brass, aluminum, or painted aluminum. Also in traditional style, our stall doors can be configured with both a name plate and shavings guard.
The Right Doors for Your Unique Barn
The style of door you choose will depend on how you use your barn, the amount of space you have, and your aesthetic preferences. However, the safety of the horses and the handlers must be paramount.
Always choose contractors and installers who have experience in horse barn planning and horse stall design. Our representatives at Sterling Equine are outstanding resources with vast knowledge and experience in equine barn design.
Check out contractor work at other barns before you make a decision. If you do your due diligence and consider safety, practicality, and functionality, you’ll build the barn of your dreams and enjoy the “wow” factor.
Contact Sterling Equine today and talk to one of our expert designers.