Choosing the right shed size is one of those decisions that's easy to get wrong. Go too small and you'll be wishing you'd gone bigger within a year. Go far too big and you've over-spent on materials and concrete. Here's how to land it right the first time.
Start with what's going inside
Forget square metres for a minute. Get specific:
- Vehicles & machinery. Measure each one — length, width, and crucially, height (with the cab door open). A modern tractor with a forward-loader sits taller than people expect.
- Hay and feed. A round bale is roughly 1.5m wide and 1.2m tall. How many do you need to stack, and how high?
- Workshop benches & shelving. Standard depth around 750mm; allow walking room behind your machinery.
- Future you. What might you buy in the next five years? An extra ute? A camper? A side-by-side?
The clearance trap
The most common sizing mistake we see is forgetting headroom over doors. If your tractor's exhaust is 3.1m off the ground, a 3.0m door isn't going to work — and door heights eat into the available stud height.
A good rule of thumb:
- 2.7m studs handle most utes, side-by-sides, ride-on mowers
- 3.0–3.6m studs cover most tractors and small trucks
- 4.2m+ studs are needed for tip trucks, larger trucks, and stacking equipment
Width: clear span vs. posts
If you need to drive in and turn, posts in the way are a real problem. Clear-span structures cost more per square metre but transform usability. Pole barns are cheaper but break the floor up.
Quick guide:
- Up to ~10m wide → pole construction is fine
- 10–15m → consider clear-span if you're storing or moving long machinery
- 15m+ → clear-span steel portal frames are the standard
Don't forget the apron
The apron in front of your shed matters as much as the shed itself. Concrete or compacted gravel, ideally at least 6m deep, lets you turn vehicles in and out without churning up paddock.
A simple sizing rule
When in doubt, add 20% to your gut number. Not 50% — that's how you end up with an oversized cathedral. Twenty percent, however, is consistently the gap between "this is perfect" and "I should've gone slightly bigger."
Need a hand sizing? Tell us what you'll be storing — we'll suggest a kit and dimensions that fit.