How to Build a Secure Barn

Build and protect a barn with security in mind.

Barns often contain valuable equipment or livestock, both of which can be put at risk when the barn is located in a rural location and far away from a homestead. Building a barn that will be protected from intrusions by children, theft of equipment or harm to livestock is a two-part issue. One part of building securely is building well with high-quality materials. The other part of building securely is using your imagination and deterring trespass or mischief in the first place.

Things You'll Need

• Plexiglass window covers
• Solid wood and metal roll up doors
• 3/4 inch diameter steel hasps and lock bars
• Steel entry doors (window-less with interior hinges)
• Door dead bolts
• Steel anti-pry guard
• Motion detector lights
• Video surveillance cameras (real or fake)
• Video surveillance signage
• Entry alarms (door type)
• Fake security protection decals
• Chain link security fence gate (hinged or roll back)
• Heavy chromed chains and prop padlocks

Instructions

1. Design new barn framing and sheathing that is as solid as a family residence, with studs on standard 16-inch centers, insulation, plywood clad sheathing, and fiberglass or metal siding. Old-fashioned barn construction--pine siding boards slapped on skimpy studs--isn't secure: Pine clapboards can be kicked in easily by a good-sized teenage boy.

2. Specify in your design plans that any windows in the new barn should be at least 10 feet from the ground, a height too tall for intruders to scale without a ladder and too tall even for an adult standing on the bed of a truck. Design any windows to be no taller than 18 inches in height, good dimensions for a narrow band of clerestory windows. Clerestory windows high up in the barn let in a lot of light, but aren't as easy to break into as traditional windows. Face the outside of any windows with Plexiglas to prevent vandalism.

3. Build with solid wood-and-aluminum clad roll-up bay doors, without window panels, rather than flimsy fiberglass doors. Make any sliding doors interior-hardware doors, with the tracks on the inside of the bay door area, not the outside where intruders can remove the doors from the tracks too easily. Make all roll-up or sliding doors "lockable" with ¾-inch steel bars and hasps in three locations on the door. Make thieves really work to cut the hasps if they have the heart to try it at all.

4. Design any side door to the barn so the hinges are on the inside of the door but the door still opens out. Edge the lockset side of the door with steel guards to prevent forcing or prying of the handset lock or deadbolts. Install a steel door without window panels.

5. Install outdoor lighting fixtures with motion detection sensors over every potential entrance. Don't use solar-powered lights; they are unreliable. Don't erect any all-night constant-on lights either: constant-on lights only attract attention to a lonely barn at night and are an energy waste.

6. Deploy video surveillance cameras connected to the Internet through phone-line DSL service or satellite DSL service. If DSL service to the barn is out of your budget range, install fake surveillance cameras. Some advanced battery-powered fake camera models are very convincing. Post prominent signs announcing that the premises are under video surveillance---with or without real or fake cameras.

7. Install low-tech unauthorized entry alarms as well. For just a few dollars you can purchase battery-powered alarm devices which, when disturbed, emit a loud alarm siren. Hang these on inside door handles. If an intruder "tries" the door, the alarm sounds. Use fake "These Premises Protected By" decals on all entrances to back up the effectiveness of the door alarms.

8. Construct a locked chain-link gate across the entrance to the service lane to the barn. Dress this gate with heavy chromed chains and multiple prop padlocks. Even if only one chain and one heavy duty padlock actually secures the gate (amid all the camouflage!), the appearance of solid security will be so daunting, most would-be intruders will keep driving.

Tips & Warnings

• Security also extends to personal security when you or farm hands are working at the barn alone, especially after dark. Install solar-powered, wireless "driveway" alarms to alert you when someone is approaching the barn on the service lane. Keep a charged pay-as-you-go cell phone in the barn, permanently, in an accessible location.

• Never stake a guard dog outside a barn property, even if a dog house is provided, if humans aren't present very nearby at all times. This is inhumane and in some counties it is also illegal.

References

• "Complete Plans For Building Horse Barns"; Nancy Ambrosianco; 2006
• "Barns, Shed, and Outbuildings--Plan, Design, Build"; John Wagner; 2005

Resources

• System Horse: Barn Security Systems
• Crown Industrial: Barn Door Hardware