BUILDING A FARM: PART 7
THE COVERED ROUNDPEN AND WALKER
For the past year, my view from the office has been piles and piles of metal beams, stacks of roofing material, and rows of fence posts - the skeletons of the covered walker and roundpen just waiting to be built.
Now, with these projects (almost) complete, I can't help but wish I could hop into a time machine to give my past self a heads-up about what I was getting into.
Assembling the 6 horse walker
First steps in building the roundpen cover
Understand The Plans
The first piece of wisdom I've picked up along the way is that you should really sit down and get cozy with the plans. Trust me; they may look like a bunch of gibberish at first, but you'll want to read them, re-read them, and then read them again. I'll be honest; I was overwhelmed by the technical jargon and diagrams that looked like hieroglyphics.
We had plenty of back-and-forths with the manufacturer during the build out. But I wish I would have had a better idea from the beginning how everything worked rather than learning during the actual construction phase. Learning the ropes as we built meant making a bunch of mistakes and having to resort to Plan B, C, or D (more times than I'd like to admit).
Removing the adhesive
Supervisor, Coffee, hard at work
Moving the footing inside
Inventory Your Materials
Even if the materials are going to sit for a year or more, you have to go through piece by piece and make sure you understand all that you have. You could find pieces are missing or that some items need to be stored differently than others.
Now here’s a funny one… We were pretty proactive about storing the wood in a way that would minimize warping, but one thing we didn’t realize was that the metal roofing sheets had a protective adhesive fabric on each piece. When we started to lay the sheets out to begin to put them up, we realized we had a bit of a disaster on our hands. The sun and the elements had melted the adhesive fabric onto the sheets. So, what should've been a simple peel-off job turned into a full-blown three-day operation, involving six brave souls, some trial and error, and lots of gasoline.
It was truly an insane process. I worked along side the team for a day and a half and went home smelling like I’d taken a gas bath. We painstakingly stripped the adhesive material off the sheets, scrubbed the goo, and power-washed the sheets to get rid of the gasoline residue. We only realized later that welding those sheets would've set the gas-soaked ones on fire. So, you guessed it, Plan B, C, and D made quite a few appearances.
The team hard at work with electrical and water lines
Assemble The Team
I’ll start off by saying, if you can have the manufacturer handle the construction as well, DO IT. It might be tempting to save a bit of money to do it yourself, but trust me, the potential for things to go wrong are incredibly high when it’s your first time around. This means slower timelines and higher risks. Higher risks translates to higher costs as well because you will inevitably be fixing your mistakes.
For example, the walker plans stated that we needed 3 conduits in the concrete pad: 2 for electrical and 1 for water. Well, we missed the memo, and only put in 2, thinking we would be able to put both electrical elements in one… Nope, the shocker cable will interfere with the main power. We spent an extra day re-digging the trench and running another conduit, this time not in the concrete like it was supposed to be. All that to say, despite how thoroughly you think you understand the plans, the manufacturer will always understand them better.
If your manufacturer can't wear the construction hat, finding someone to build the structures becomes the main priority. I called so many general contractors and even had one actively working on the job before he disappeared (the running theory is that he realized the job was out of his expertise). I went through concrete bids, electrical bids, etc. but the hardest part was finding someone with a crew capable of erecting the structures. Once I realized that, I started searching for people who could handle the construction… Essentially the entirety of the project. I found a contractor who builds barns. In talking to him, he told me he had actually built covered roundpens before. To say I was relieved… Understatement of the year. His team tackled the concrete and construction of the covers. My team handled the rest and the manufacturer sent out a supervisor to help us set up the technical bits in the walker.
Walker details
The complete 6 horse covered walker
In the grand scheme of things, the process was a rollercoaster, but the end result? Totally worth the wait, even if it bordered on torture. We could tailor the fencing to match our horses' needs, and honestly, we're so happy with both the look and function of both.
Beautiful 60’ covered roundpen
GoldTEX synthetic footing