Many farm shops have to serve multiple purposes. Storing machinery and seed, a space for calls or meetings, or even as a home for an on-farm business. For Josh Hora and his father, Dale, of Olivet, S.D., their new farm shop needed to fit all of this and more.
“Our previous shop was 60 by 72, and we outgrew that and were working in my warehouse. And it’s no fun to work in the heat of the summer and going in between two buildings,” Hora says of the decision to build a new farm shop to house machinery, seed and his business, Hora Repair.
With the repair business, Hora says their main priority for the new shop was functionality. “There’s a difference between farm shops that are just fixing equipment,” he says, adding that their shop had to handle custom repair work as well.
Customized for functionality
Their first step in planning was thinking through what they wanted with their new shop. “We had to decide what size and what features we would need,” Hora says. “We do a lot of customer care and getting equipment in, and we have six guys running around the shop working.”
Their decision: The shop would be 72 by 175 feet, with 20-foot sidewalls.
Hora worked with Summit Contracting of Platte, S.D., a full-service construction company specializing in farm shops, grain systems and other farm structures. Casey Baumgarn, building sales lead for Summit Contracting, worked with Hora on the project.