How to Select the Best Stall Doors for Your Barn

This helpful blog post is brought to you by American Stalls 

There are hundreds of stalls styles to choose from, but as far as stall doors go the choice is a little more limited. The door is a very important component, if not one of the most important parts of your stalls. In this article we’ll go over the pros and cons of the two types of stall doors, sliding and hinged doors

Hinged Stall Doors

Hinged, swinging stall door

Although hinged stall doors are more common than sliding doors, they tend to be slightly less practical. Because they swing out, this style requires your barn aisle to be fairly wide – and even more so if you have rows of stalls directly facing each other. When considering hinged stall doors, your main concerns should be aisle width and aisle leveling.

Firstly, the aisle should be wide enough to allow for the hinged door to safely open and close. Secondly, the barn aisle needs to be tempered and leveled. This is crucial since the bottom of a stall door can get stuck on uneven flooring. If you choose a hinged door, allow for a few inches of clearance between the barn floor and the bottom of the stall door.

American Stalls New Hinged Designs

Adronis

Milano

Manchester

Versailles

Sliding Stall Doors 

Our team almost always recommend sliding stall doors for both safety and efficiency reasons. In a barn with many horses that are going in and out throughout the day, sliding stall doors are simply more efficient for the most part.

Sliding doors offer a practical, space saving solution. Sliding doors a perfect choice for busy facilities

Generally, sliding doors are preferred for safety reasons – including:

• A sliding door removes the concern of the door swinging unexpectedly or moving due to wind.
• The flexibly of leaving the stall open gives the handler more room to perform additional tasks.
• A sliding door is more difficult for a naughty horse to open on their own!
• Because sliding doors can be left open are when horses are out of the stall, it is easier for barn managers to take a quick tally of which horses are in the barn.
• Again, when you are leading the horse back into the stall, there is less action involved to close a sliding stall door.
• In the event of a fire emergency, you have very little time to make crucial, life-saving decisions. Sliding doors allow for letting multiple animals out quickly without creating blockages in the aisle.

American Stalls New Designs

Here are the latest renderings for American Stalls new custom stalls with sliding doors.

Jeffersonian

Roosevelt

Washington

Planning your next barn project? Contact American Stalls today. They offer a wide variety of fully-custom options including stall fronts, stall doors, barn end doors, Dutch doors, barn windows, and so much more.