Roofing plastic vs metal

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Quote:
If the roof is already covered in plywood, paper it and use some cheap shingles. Check craigslist for cheap small lots of roofing materials.
on a side note: even the corrugated plastic at home depot are over $20 each I think. I saw a guy on craigslist a while back selling plastic for $5, and metal for $10 from a shed he tore down
 
If I was building the coop myself I would absolutely do shingles. But I am ordering it from a builder so options don't include shingles
smile.png
wish they did. I am just under budget and wouldn't have the extra money to get shingles to add so I will let him do the metal corrogated.
 
Quote:
Pat is absolutely correct about this. I tried a clear polycarb roof on my little winter coop, thinking the coop would heat up in the day and stay warmer at night. What happened is that the coop heated up nicely on sunny winter days, but the heat was lost almost immediately when the sun went down because the roof was not insulated.

Then when summer rolled around, the coop was running a good 20 -25 degrees hotter than the ambient temperature...not so good when the ambient temperature is 90 degrees. It made the coop essentially unusable for the summer months.

I switched from clear to white polycarb, but I didn't find much of an improvement heat wise.
 
Thanks for all the info. I may have to put something under the clear plastic roof that covers the "Coop" part, and just leave it on the "run" part.
 
We have the plastic/fiberglass light gray see through. We love it, provides natural light, looks nice and was inexpensive. We haven't noticed anything negative as far as wear and tear or weather issues.
 
Quote:
Oh, if you are in Michigan just permanently put some insulation (or at least plywood) underneath it. You will need it in the summer to keep from overheating, AND you will need it in the winter to prevent condensation/frost/humidity problems from the uninsulated plastic roof. Really really.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat
 
Thank you so much for your help. I will do that tomorrow.
I don't want my girls to get frostbite!!!!
We have one more door to build and a "gutter" of some kind. (We did not put the eaves out far enough)
I am so glad I found BYC! You all have helped me so very much!

Celia
 
Depends on where you live, here in New England the metal roof will hold up much better, especially with snow loads, plastic would not. We are going with a metal roof for our coop.

Zekii
 
Polycarbonate (Suntuf, etc) is rated up to 40 psf snow load as long as you have your purlins (nailers) on 16" centers. I expect you could probably go past that with even more closely spaced purlins if you wanted to, but not many people HAVE to deal with more than 40 psf snowloads. (Excepting some major lake-effect snow regions etc)

Pat
 

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