Need help designing “portable” kennel building… - Page 1

My wife and are planning on moving to a rental situation with much more property. This is primarily to have her horse with us, but will be great for the dogs as well. To this end, I’d like to design a proper kennel out-building for them. Since we’ll be renting, our current practice of kenneling in our house in magnum kennels probably won’t fly. I’m actually not to bothered by this. The dogs are in an unfinished basement during the day (plenty of windows and sunlight however) in their magnums, but keeping up with the dirt tracked in, dust, etc is a huge pain and pretty much renders the basement useless for anything else – as even with 2 air filters there is always a fine coat of dust on things no matter how much we vacuum/dust/etc.

So, I’ve been looking at “portable” out buildings that can be delivered and moved for few hundred dollars. They are essentially buildings on skids. This is how most sheds, garages, run-in, etc that are built offsite (usually by Amish here in the NE) and delivered to you are built. The structure needs to be “portable” as at the end of the lease I’ll need to move the structure to a new location. There are some really nice ones pre-built ones already available (12’ x 24’) setup as kennels, with electric, AC, plenty of windows and indoor/outdoor sections. The outdoor portions are essentially “decks” with a roof that two 5’ x 5’ kennels go under. This is nice as you don’t need to pour a pad. A pad isn’t necessary for our dogs anyhow. We’re around often enough to let them out on regular basis and they don’t soil their kennels. The reality is that we couldn’t pour a pad at a rental site anyhow.  Here is a link to what I'm talking about:

www.barnyardsheds.com/dogkennels.htm

Anyhow, the rub is that the pre-built version I’ve been looking at are upwards of $10k. The reality is that they are constructed from less than $1-2k worth of materials – so 8 thousand or so for labor is a bit much, especially when I’m more than capable of doing it myself ;) Also, there are some things I’d do different. So, I’m considering building my own.
My questions are, has anyone tried this? Building a skid based kennel building, or converting a shed that was built off site (and delivered) to a kennel? I’d like to know tips/pitfalls/etc.

Thanks,

-Calvin

12X24 is a large portable building, and would require special moving arraignments because of the width.
You couldn't just throw it on a car trailer.
You could prefab sections and use screws on everything for disassembly but the parts will be heavy.
As long as your on timbers and not concrete it can be considered temporary.
You can build something and take it apart later thats possible but its complicated.
I have disassembled log cabins and rebuilt them on new sites, everything is labeled and its like putting together a puzzle.
I dunno.

look at this


www.caninekennels.com


something similar

cheers

Vikram,

Awesome link!  Outstanding products!  I've emailed them to see if they have a USA based partner.  Some, but only a subset of their offerings are available in the USA, spread across a range of vendors, but I haven't seen such an inclusive grouping of great options anywhere over here.

-Calvin