Keeping swine facilities safe and functional

What should you be inspecting inside the barn and what will it cost to replace?

Ann Hess, Content Director

September 24, 2024

7 Min Read
Slide presentation on hog barns
Altenburg Construction

When Brian Blumhagen entered the swine industry in 1994 it was the beginning of the confinement building boom. Thirty years later those barns have seen their days.

In Iowa alone, he estimates almost 668 barns per year age out.

“One of our options would just be tear them down and build new, but the reality of new construction, particularly since COVID … I don't think that's probably going to happen,” says the director of operations for Altenburg Construction.

For a 2,400 double wide vent barn, it now costs $425-$450 per pig space for a turnkey build cost. Pre-COVID, that figure was closer to $325. With 8% interest and financing over 15 to 20 years, Blumhagen says it would take a $35 to $40/pig space lease just to service that facility note depending on down payment.

Inspecting your barn- What to look for?

With those costs in mind, Blumhagen recommends starting an annual inspection and that begins with the roof, ideally in October, before the heavy wet snow presents itself across the Midwest.

He advises starting with the truss plate, or gussets, the equipment providing the strength inside the rafter system. Is there any corrosion on the plate and how severe is that corrosion?

“If it's really severe and it's really powdery and rusty when you're rubbing your hands over it, if you hit it with a hammer and it disintegrates, you got a problem,” Blumhagen says.

The soffits are another area to examine, particularly on the prevailing wind side. “If the soffit is gone or rusted, and it's on the west or the north side, and you get a prevailing wind, you can fill that attic pretty quickly with snow when you get those,” Blumhagen says.

Other things to look at include insulation thickness. The more insulation is compressed, the more R-value is lost and over time, that directly impacts the amount of heat held in the barn.

Another area to observe is screw patterns in roof steel, trusses and perlins. Are there a lot of missed boards? If so, Blumhagen says it was probably a poor installation and it's a source for water getting in the barn.

Outside the barn, the one that often gets overlooked is the perimeter water and in the observation tube.

“If you built a barn after 1998, and it's a deep pit barn, it's required by law to have a perimeter tile at the base of the barn. You can exit that water on site by a sump pump or hooking to drainage tile, .  This really matters when you're emptying your pit,” Blumhagen says. “When you suck your pit down in the fall and you get a really heavy rain and you don't get the water away from that perimeter, it's putting hydraulic pressure on that pit and could potentially heave the pit floor.”

He suggests looking down in the observation tube and if there's water halfway up, there is water pressure on that and to keep an eye on it, particularly during pumping season.

Another area to observe is pit covers and pit fans. If pit fan covers are not on tight, the fans will suck air from the least resistance. If there are some gaps, fill them in with foam or caulk.

Bulk bins are pretty much bulletproof Blumhagen says, unless they were placed in front of an exhaust fan with a poor design. “We really don't see the bulk bins fail over time. So, unless you're blowing exhaust air on them, they're pretty robust.”

When it comes to curtains, watch for holes and keep pressure washers off of them and rodents away from them, as they can last a long time. Also, it is essential to make sure all pulleys are functional.

Inside the barn, examine the ceiling everywhere, including the transition areas (right along the curtains and in the inlets). “When you have really warm, moist air transitioning to cold air, and vice versa, that's where you get the condensation and that's where you're going to see the deterioration versus in those transition areas,” Blumhagen says.

The sill plate needs to remain anchored, as it is a really important anchor point in the barn, particularly when derechos or tornadoes are pushing on those barns, Blumhagen says. The best time to re-anchor is when replacing hog paneling on the side.

As for gas lines, he says look for rust and corrosion. Keep gating bracket tightened and maintained. Ensure inlets, fans and controllers are greased up to keep them in service.

When it comes to slats, Blumhagen says they are “the exception and a lot like bankruptcy.”

“A slat failure happens really, really slowly and then all at once. And that all at once can be kind of violent and that's what we're trying to avoid,” he says.

While the expected life out of a slat and beam is 25 to 35 years, they need to be routinely inspected. Right after a turn and the slats are washed and dried, he suggests turning the lights off and first examining the beams with a flashlight. The beams sit on top of the columns and the slats then sit on top of the beams.

“If you do the math and you add up what the beams here are carrying, throughout its life, it always has four to probably five tons on it, depending on how many pigs you have and how big those pigs go,” Blumhagen says. “And obviously it's a pretty harsh environment, it never gets cleaned like the slat surface so all that manure and urine and everything is sitting there the whole life. So, the combination of a lot of heavy weight, sometimes shifts and movements, is a really tough environment, chemically speaking.”

After 25 to 30 years, producers will start to see beam crack right on the ends where they are set on the columns. After that, the cracks will start to follow the rebar and the concrete will fall apart due to corrosion of the rebar in that beam. This severely weakens the beams and increases the risk of failure.

“The second corrosion starts, when metal rusts, it expands and it starts blowing that concrete apart and that's really when the clock starts ticking ,” Blumhagen says.

If a long lateral crack in the beam is observed, he recommends getting a replacement sooner rather than later. When there are multiple ones right next to each other, he says it’s a quantitative thing and it adds up to needing replacement sooner rather than later.

The same goes with the end rails on the slats, Blumhagen says. If there are one or two cracks, not a big deal. When you start to see a series of them all occurring together, that's really the first step. The second the rebar is exposed; it starts corroding.

As for beam pockets, if the beam isn't tight to the one next to it and it wasn't stuck completely the beam pocket, over time, will work its way out of the pocket. Then the pit wall shears off a little bit, the beam shears off and drops. Blumhagen says, “if you're lucky, it just wedges in there. If you're unlucky, it drops in the pit completely bringing the slats with it.”

The last thing to examine are the bearing surface for poor installation. The beams should be equally spaced on top of the columns. This spreads the load bearing equally across all the beam ends.

Barn repairs- Understanding the costs

To reroof a 2,400 head barn with 29-gauge G100 steel, Blumhagen estimates it would cost $48,000 or $20/pig space. The best time to repair truss plates is when doing a reroof, and that will cost about $10,000 for a minor fix up. If every gusset plate needs to be replaced, you're probably getting closer to $50,000, he says.

For slat and beam replacement, it will cost $160,000 for a 2,400 head barn or $60-$75/pig space.  

As for ceilings, once there are holes in 30 or 40% of the sheets it's time to consider replacing the whole ceiling, Blumhagen says. New aluminum ceiling and reinsulate will cost about $60,000 for a 2,400 head barn or $25/pig space. For plastic ceiling over top of existing steel, it can cost $41,000 or $17/pig space.

Gating, at $84,000 or $35/pig space, would be the second most expensive item after slats and beams to be replaced in a barn.

Dry feeders will cost about $28,000 or $11.50/pig space, while wet/dry feeders will run about $42,000 or $17.50/pig space. Curtain replacement costs around $14,000 or  $6/pig space. To replace insulation, it will be about $16,000 for a 2,400 head barn or $6.50/pig space.

“We're going to put a lot of money into fixing these barns up and we will economically be money ahead,” Blumhagen says. “Not to say we won't build some new barns for certain reasons such as breeding gilt grow outs in non-pig dense areas or something specific like that, but right now the math is going to suggest that as we go through these barns that are aging out every year, we’re going to fix them up.”

Read more about:

SwinePigs

About the Author

Ann Hess

Content Director, National Hog Farmer

Subscribe to Our Newsletters
National Hog Farmer is the source for hog production, management and market news

You May Also Like