Getting the size of a machinery shed right is the part most people rush, and it is the part that is impossible to fix later. A shed that is one metre too narrow or half a metre too low will annoy you every single day it stands there. Machinery shed sizes are not really about square metres. They are about whether your gear fits, whether you can get it in and out without a three point turn, and whether there is room for the machine you buy in five years.

Here is how we work it out with our customers.

Start with the machine, not the shed

Almost everyone starts by picking a shed size off a list. Start at the other end. Walk out to the shed you have now, or the paddock, and measure what actually has to go inside.

For every machine, write down four numbers:

• Overall length, including the drawbar, the tow hitch or the front linkage
• Overall width with everything folded, and the width with things unfolded if you ever need to work on it inside
• Overall height at its tallest point, which is usually the exhaust, the cab, the beacon or a folded auger
• Turning circle, or at least how much room you need to line it up with the door

Then add the things that are not machines. Drums, a workbench, a compressor, tyres, chemical storage, the ute. Those take up more room than anyone expects and they are what end up pushing a tractor back out into the weather.

Span is the number that decides everything

Span is the width of the building from wall to wall, and it is the number that costs the most to get wrong. A clear span shed has no internal columns, so the full width is usable. Once you put columns in, the usable width is what sits between them, not what the shed measures on the outside.

That distinction matters more than people expect. If you are reversing a wide implement in, a column in the middle of the building turns an easy job into a careful one. If you are only storing gear and never manoeuvring inside, columns are perfectly sensible and they let you go wider for less.

Work out which one you are. Storage, or storage plus working space. The answer changes the design.

Height and door openings catch more people than width

Wall height and door height are two different measurements, and the door is always the smaller one. A shed can be plenty tall and still have an opening that will not take a machine with the cab up or an auger folded.

Measure your tallest machine in its travelling position, then check whether anything on it has to be raised to get it moving. Sprayers, headers, chaser bins and anything with a folding boom are the usual culprits. It is also worth deciding now whether you want to be able to stand a machine up on a hoist or work on it with the tray tipped, because that is a wall height decision, not a door decision.

Roller doors, sliding doors and open bays all behave differently here, and a wider opening is not automatically better. Talk it through before the design is locked in.

Bay spacing and what goes between the columns

The length of a machinery shed is usually broken into bays. Bay spacing sets where the columns land, which sets what fits between them, and that is a more useful way to think about length than a single overall number.

If you want one machine per bay, size the bay around that machine plus room to walk past it with a toolbox. If you are open ended and want to run gear in end to end, say so early, because it changes the framing.

Leave room for the machine you have not bought yet

This is the one bit of advice we give every rural customer. Machinery gets bigger. The shed you build today will still be standing in twenty five years and the gear inside it will have turned over two or three times.

Adding length at the design stage is the cheapest extra space you will ever buy. Adding it after the slab is poured is not. If the budget is tight, we would rather see a longer shed with a simpler specification than a short shed with every option on it.

Hay sheds are a different problem

A hay shed is sized around stack height and how you load it, not around a machine. The questions are how high you can safely stack, how much clearance the loader or telehandler needs above the top bale, and how the wind gets through. Open sided hay sheds and enclosed machinery sheds are engineered differently, so if one building has to do both jobs, that needs to be part of the brief from the start rather than a change later.

Getting your machinery shed engineered for your site

Once the sizes are settled, the building has to stand up where you are putting it. Wind, terrain and topography all change the design, which is why every one of our buildings comes with Site Specific Engineering worked to the conditions on your property rather than a generic drawing. Our rural sheds are built from 100% Australian BlueScope steel and are fully bolted rather than screwed, which is what lets them carry solar panels, hoists and the loads a working farm puts through them.

Council approval, slabs and lead times all follow from the design, and we answer the common ones on our shed FAQs page. If your requirements do not fit a standard layout, that is not a problem. We can modify almost every aspect of a building, and our custom shed designs exist for exactly that reason.

There is no one size fits all when it comes to machinery shed sizes. Bring us your measurements and what you want to be able to do inside the building, and one of our shed specialists will help you scope it properly. Call 1300 881 588 or request a quote and we will come back to you.