Covering Dirt Floor Barn

Dirt well draining soil really can be a good flooring.

Covering dirt floor barn.

My shop which is a 24x60 ft insulated room with concrete slab floor has been built in one corner of the barn. Dust kicks up because it is fine and small enough to be influenced. Cover the entire floor with gravel coarse sand chipped wood or a similar larger particle product to a depth of about 3 inches. Flooring needs to have good traction so that horses and their handlers don t slip and fall.

Lay the sheets in rows across the dirt floor. Barn flooring is the foundation of a clean and safe barn. While ventilation is always important moisture naturally occurs with dirt floors. Since barns are constantly exposed to the mess that goes along with horses including manure dirt and hair the floors need to be easy to keep clean.

Overlap the bottom of the walls with two inches of the sheet edges raised upward along the wall s surface. I have a 60x120 ft pole barn in my backyard. Part of the garage we did years ago and it has worked very. Rubber and synthetic bricks are other options and these are easy on a horse s legs provide good drainage and are non slip.

Cover the dirt floor with a layer of 10 mil plastic sheeting to serve as a vapor barrier which will keep moisture from seeping through the dirt and onto your wood floor. Agricultural equipment can also be stored safely in a dirt floored barn. The other side of the same end of the barn used to be a 10 or 12 horse stable but all the stalls have been removed leaving a concrete slab on the center walkway strip and just dirt floor in the areas on both sides where the horse stalls. Because of the grooves between the pavers they can be a bit harder to clean.

If you want to practice compost bedding adding bedding to the top periodically to create a clean surface and allowing the bottom to compost and produce heat all winter then it is probably the best choice. When you have animals housed in a barn dirt floors will provide softer ground to stand or rest on than other types of flooring such as concrete. So make sure adequate ventilation is in your plans. A big con is that you have a big cleanout ahead of you in the spring and you will have to dig out and replace some of the dirt after the cleanout.