A machinery shed fails in two boring ways: the door is too small for the machine you bought last winter, or the eaves clip the loader. We start there. Width, length, eaves, and a photo that shows the approach. Not a livestock ventilation essay. Not a grain-drying diagram. Implements want span and a hole in the wall you can reverse through without thinking.
The default we preload on the designer is a 15 × 24 m portal with a roller door — close to 50 ft by 80 ft if you still walk the yard in feet. Eaves around 5.5 m (we use the 18 ft step in the 3D tool). That is a working implement shed, not a cathedral and not a lean-to pretending to be one.
What we cut for machinery
Hot-rolled S355 columns and rafters, EXC2, detailed in Penicuik. Cold-rolled purlins where they belong — on the roof and rails, not as the frame. Box-profile cladding in juniper green or goosewing grey is the usual skin. A personnel door beside the roller so you are not lifting the curtain to fetch a grease gun.
Bay centres of 4.5–6 m keep the steel honest and the door options sane. Put the roller on a gable if you drive through; put it on a long side if the yard already dictates the approach. We will not guess — the photo tells us which hedge you refuse to move.
Lean-tos off an existing machinery shed are common in the Lothians: a later bay for a second tractor, a covered wash-down, or a workshop that outgrew the end wall. We need a tape on the existing bay centres and a shot of the eaves haunch. We do not invent a connection from a sketch on a feed bag if the photo exists.
What this page is not
It is not livestock housing. Ammonia, Yorkshire boarding and vented ridges live on the livestock page. It is not a grain store. Crop buildings need a different door and frame conversation. It is not a cladding merchant’s colour chart with a portal attached. And it is not a concrete package — your groundworks contractor pours the slab to the holding-down layout we issue.
FFIS will not pay for the shed. Do not file this building under that grant. If you are an eligible crofter, CAGS is a different conversation with your agent. We still only fabricate steel.
Kit or erected
A machinery shed is the easiest kit for a competent farm crew: regular bays, one big door, no animal welfare detailing. If you have plant and three people who have stood a portal before, kit from Penicuik to anywhere in the UK is the cheaper route. If you want us to lift it in the Central Belt, say erected on the form. Same steel.
Indicative kit numbers for a 15 × 24 × 5.5 m shed sit on the cost page at the conservative end of a £40–£80/m² kit band. They are not a quote. Foundations extra. A site photo gets a fixed number in 24 hours.
How to brief it
List the largest machine that must go through the door — make, width, height with loader up or down. That single line saves a redraw. Then postcode, photo, and whether you want kit or a Central Belt lift. Class 18 prior notification still applies on a qualifying holding; we issue drawings for the agent.
Design the bay layout in the farm shed designer or skip it and use the form on this page. Either way the subject line should read like a machinery shed, not an RSJ take-off.