Are "Amish-Built" Horse Barns Truly Offer the Best Construction and the Best Quality?
Many people associate "Amish-Built" with the quality and automatically assume that if they purchase, or hire Amish carpenters to build their horse barn or any other structure, they will get one of the best-built barns for the money. Perhaps, that used to be the case - NOT ANY MORE. These days, "Amish-Built" phrase is simply being used & often abused by many builders and dealers that carry Amish product. This phrase is mostly used now for advertising purposes. The Reality is, Amish people no longer build better barns and do not always offer better quality. Amish, just like any other builders are trying to compete with different Non-Amish companies and quite often, with each other - for customers.
It seems like the latest trend of some Amish companies is to offer the better price, not necessary the better product. Why sweat and worry about quality, when you can just say "Amish Built"? Yes, we do have to give credit to Amish people for brining different styles of sheds, barns and other nice looking product into the market, but to automatically assume that their product is better constructed, is a big mistake. There are some good quality Amish barns & sheds, but also you will find some barns built by the Amish that would hardly pass any construction codes. It's good to offer a better price for a horse barn, but to cut corners & to use cheaper materials in order to offer the better price, is simply unacceptable. The bottom line - No matter where you buy your horse barn from (Amish, English or Mennonites) - get all the details about the barn (construction specifications, materials used, dimensions, wall heights, etc.), compare, and go for the Best!
Who are the Modern Amish?
If you thought that the Amish build their barns, sheds and other product using hand-saws and hammers - think again. The Amish, just like any other companies use power tools. The only difference, most of them use air compressors to operate their power tools, such as table saws, miter saws and other machinery (diesel generator supplies power to the air compressor and air compressor in turn powers their converted-to-air machinery). Also, to be more competitive with the Non-Amish builders, more & more Amish company owners turn to the use of modern technology. These days, if you would to visit some of the Amish companies and walk into their office, you'll notice telephones, fax machines, cell phones being used and yes, even computers (though, in some cases, fax machines and computers are hidden from view). The use of the modern technology (such as phones & fax machines) is allowed by some Amish Elders, for business use only, in order to compete with the Non-Amish. Other Elders are more conservative and may not allow the use of this technology. It's still unknown if computers and websites are allowed, but we see more & more Amish companies are using computers and creating business websites.
So, is there any difference between the Amish owned companies and others? It appears, not that much after all. Is Amish product built better? - It depends who you ask, but in our opinion, not always.
What we have learned for sure living among the Amish, is that the phrase "Amish-Built" does not always mean the best quality. In fact, in some cases (believe it or not) it might not even mean that the product is actually built by the Amish, since "Amish-Built" is so much abused by so many retailers who think if they advertise their product as Amish-Built, they will sell more.
Plain People are good people, but definitely not the angels, therefore, when you shop around for that perfect horse barn, don't just ask if it's Amish-Built. Ask how it's built, and you'll never make a mistake.