North Richmond
Four timber horse shelters across the paddocks of a North Richmond property — built in four days to keep the horses out of the sun and the rain.
Project details
Location
North Richmond, Hawkesbury
Type
Horse stables / paddock shelters
Scope
Four freestanding shelters
Structure
Round timber posts, bolted timber roof framing
Roofing
Corrugated metal sheeting
Walls
Clad rear wall, open front
Footings
Augered holes, posts set in concrete
Build time
Four days for all four shelters
What the site needed
The owners of this North Richmond property keep horses across several paddocks, and those paddocks had very little in the way of cover. On a hot Hawkesbury summer day the horses had nowhere to get out of the sun, and when the rain came through they had nowhere to stand dry.
The brief was simple: give the horses somewhere to go when the weather turns. That meant four freestanding shelters, one placed in each paddock, solid enough to stay put for years in open ground and simple enough that the horses would actually use them.
George came out on site first to walk the paddocks and talk through where each shelter should sit and how it should face. From there the design was customised to the property rather than pulled off a standard plan.
Site constraints
Building in a working paddock is not the same as building in a backyard. The ground is open grazing country, soft in places and uneven in others, and the horses still had to be housed and moved around the property while the work was going on.
A shelter in an open paddock catches every bit of wind that comes across it. The posts had to be set deep and solid so the structure wouldn't rock or lift over time, and each one had to be plumb so the roof sat true across four separate builds.
Then there was the time frame. Four structures on four sites across the property meant the set-out, materials and sequence had to be planned so the crew could move from one paddock to the next without losing a day.
What we built
Each shelter was marked out on the ground before any digging started, so post positions were fixed before the machine arrived. Post holes were then drilled with a mini excavator and auger, which gave consistent depth and diameter on every hole and kept disturbance to the paddock to a minimum.
Each round timber post was stood in its hole, checked for plumb with a spirit level, held in place with temporary bracing and set in concrete. Post heights were then checked with a laser level so the roof line sat true from one end of the shelter to the other.
The frame and roof structure were built in timber, with the beams bolted through the posts. It suits the rural setting, it's strong enough for an open site, and it gives a solid fixing for the roof and wall sheeting. The roof is finished in corrugated metal sheeting with a generous overhang at the front, so the horses get shade underneath through the middle of the day and stay dry when the rain is coming in at an angle.
Each shelter has a clad rear wall to break the wind and driving rain, with the front left open. Horses won't always walk into an enclosed space, so an open front lets them come and go as they please while still giving them real protection from the elements.
All four shelters — set-out, footings, framing, roofing and cladding — were completed in four days, ready for the horses to use straight away.
Project photos
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