We're happy to announce that with the help of 151 friends, family members, fellow farmers, and neighbors, as well as a very fair insurance payment from our insurance company, we've been able to meet our original $40,000 goal in our fundraising campaign! If that weren't good enough news, we have also sold all our pig shares for 2015 and only have a half beef share left to sell. We feel so incredibly blessed. We went from the lowest of lows 2 months ago, to an overwhelmingly positive place today. Our farm business will survive, our barn will be rebuilt, and the future looks incredibly bright for Thoughtful Food.
We've been making lots of progress on other fronts as well. The debris from the demolition of the barn is now all cleaned up. A 40 yard dumpster of metal was filled and trucked away for recycling last week, and a 40 yard dumpster for wood was filled and trucked away for recycling this week. The excavator that Calendar Construction allowed us to use is now off the property, but it was incredibly valuable in getting the site partially graded and picking up broken concrete. All that is left to do to the site before rebuilding is to finish grading, bring in some more rock for fill and for a barn floor, and to reposition a few fences.
We have a tentative plan for the new barn, although we are waiting to hear back from a few construction companies on quotes. Our plan as of now is to construct a 100 ft by 40 ft pole building with the 100 ft side running lengthwise across our property (if the building were present in the picture above, you would see the 100 ft side). On each end of the 100 ft side, we want to leave 20 feet open for easy equipment storage and other uses that don't require an enclosed space. The middle 60 feet we will enclose with metal siding, and this section will sit over top of our old slab (the slab was only 20ft by 60ft so we will still have half of the space with a dirt floor). In addition to the main structure, we want to build a 36 foot long lean-to along the entire backside of the 100 ft side. This will give us 3600 feet of dry space for winter animal housing and to locate up to 20 farrowing pens. The lean-to will be open on all sides. We think this design maximizes the functionality while minimizing the cost. If we find we want more enclosed space in the future, we can add more siding.
I looked into lots of different options, including fabric buildings and greenhouses, but in the end this was the most economical option that gave us a secure "home base" that was fully enclosed. The 2400 square feet of enclosed space should be plenty of room for storage, a shop space for working on equipment, and to provide a meeting space for when we need to move the pig roast indoors or if we ever want to put on a farm dinner. The open-ends will give us the covered storage space we previously lacked for equipment, and in our wet winters, it's important to protect expensive equipment investments. If and when we do invest in a more expensive tractor in the future, it will be nice to keep it stored under cover. We can also use these spaces for overflow animal housing or as a "loading dock" space for getting animals into or out of a livestock trailer.
With this design, we're actually upgrading our capability to raise pigs and steers over the old barn. The old barn and the new barn will have about the same amount of volume, but the new barn will have a lot more square footage which we think will be a lot more useful for us as we don't need to store huge amounts of hay. The old barn was optimized for square bale storage, which was a necessity for the original use of the barn as a small dairy. The silver lining of the fire is that we get the opportunity to design a space that exactly matches our needs now and into the future.
Thanks to the support we've received, we can afford to build something that will allow us to grow our business in to the future and give a realistic chance to be employed full-time by the farm in a few years. Initial estimates received put the cost of this barn at about $40,000 for the materials and about $60,000 fully installed. We have received a lot of advice encouraging us to have the professionals install the posts, and we are thinking it makes sense to do this, as well as probably having the roof trusses installed. We are unsure if we want to install the roofing ourselves or pay to have this installed, but we know we want to install the siding and doors ourselves, as well as installing the electrical. With the number of people that have offered to help us with our barn-raising party, we think this will be totally doable. We're estimating the total cost of the barn is going to be around $52,000 before sales tax.
As of today, the total that we have received between donations and checks from the insurance company is $40,020. We will receive another $5000 from the insurance company when the structure is complete, and we will also receive about $3000-$5000 from the insurance company based on equipment we choose to replace. Some of that money will need to go toward replacing equipment, but much of the equipment that was lost in the fire, such as a washer, dryer, and dishwasher, will not need to be replaced. As you can see below, we've spent almost $3000 so far replacing equipment and paying for cleanup, and we anticipate we'll need to spend about $5000 more on equipment, about $600 more on dumpster fees, and about $1000 on rock and fill materials. The permitting for the new barn will probably cost somewhere in the area of $1500, and sales tax will be about $4000. Adding everything up and accounting for the insurance payments we will receive at the end, we anticipate we'll need to borrow about $20,000 to complete the barn. This is something that is affordable for us, and it's a lot less daunting than what we thought we'd end up needing to pay on the night of the fire.
We have a tentative plan for the new barn, although we are waiting to hear back from a few construction companies on quotes. Our plan as of now is to construct a 100 ft by 40 ft pole building with the 100 ft side running lengthwise across our property (if the building were present in the picture above, you would see the 100 ft side). On each end of the 100 ft side, we want to leave 20 feet open for easy equipment storage and other uses that don't require an enclosed space. The middle 60 feet we will enclose with metal siding, and this section will sit over top of our old slab (the slab was only 20ft by 60ft so we will still have half of the space with a dirt floor). In addition to the main structure, we want to build a 36 foot long lean-to along the entire backside of the 100 ft side. This will give us 3600 feet of dry space for winter animal housing and to locate up to 20 farrowing pens. The lean-to will be open on all sides. We think this design maximizes the functionality while minimizing the cost. If we find we want more enclosed space in the future, we can add more siding.
I looked into lots of different options, including fabric buildings and greenhouses, but in the end this was the most economical option that gave us a secure "home base" that was fully enclosed. The 2400 square feet of enclosed space should be plenty of room for storage, a shop space for working on equipment, and to provide a meeting space for when we need to move the pig roast indoors or if we ever want to put on a farm dinner. The open-ends will give us the covered storage space we previously lacked for equipment, and in our wet winters, it's important to protect expensive equipment investments. If and when we do invest in a more expensive tractor in the future, it will be nice to keep it stored under cover. We can also use these spaces for overflow animal housing or as a "loading dock" space for getting animals into or out of a livestock trailer.
With this design, we're actually upgrading our capability to raise pigs and steers over the old barn. The old barn and the new barn will have about the same amount of volume, but the new barn will have a lot more square footage which we think will be a lot more useful for us as we don't need to store huge amounts of hay. The old barn was optimized for square bale storage, which was a necessity for the original use of the barn as a small dairy. The silver lining of the fire is that we get the opportunity to design a space that exactly matches our needs now and into the future.
Thanks to the support we've received, we can afford to build something that will allow us to grow our business in to the future and give a realistic chance to be employed full-time by the farm in a few years. Initial estimates received put the cost of this barn at about $40,000 for the materials and about $60,000 fully installed. We have received a lot of advice encouraging us to have the professionals install the posts, and we are thinking it makes sense to do this, as well as probably having the roof trusses installed. We are unsure if we want to install the roofing ourselves or pay to have this installed, but we know we want to install the siding and doors ourselves, as well as installing the electrical. With the number of people that have offered to help us with our barn-raising party, we think this will be totally doable. We're estimating the total cost of the barn is going to be around $52,000 before sales tax.
As of today, the total that we have received between donations and checks from the insurance company is $40,020. We will receive another $5000 from the insurance company when the structure is complete, and we will also receive about $3000-$5000 from the insurance company based on equipment we choose to replace. Some of that money will need to go toward replacing equipment, but much of the equipment that was lost in the fire, such as a washer, dryer, and dishwasher, will not need to be replaced. As you can see below, we've spent almost $3000 so far replacing equipment and paying for cleanup, and we anticipate we'll need to spend about $5000 more on equipment, about $600 more on dumpster fees, and about $1000 on rock and fill materials. The permitting for the new barn will probably cost somewhere in the area of $1500, and sales tax will be about $4000. Adding everything up and accounting for the insurance payments we will receive at the end, we anticipate we'll need to borrow about $20,000 to complete the barn. This is something that is affordable for us, and it's a lot less daunting than what we thought we'd end up needing to pay on the night of the fire.
We will leave the fundraising page up, but we won't be changing the goal. If we receive any additional donations, we will be grateful and thankful, but for now we are beyond thankful to everyone who has supported us over the last two months. Once we have a better idea of the barn-raising party date, we will let you know. Also, if you have any thoughts or feedback on our barn design, please let us know.
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