Solar fan

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Songster
9 Years
Apr 27, 2010
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Does anyone use a solar powered fan in their coop?
If so, how does it work? Which one are you using and how is the fan/the panel placed?


I am planning my coop at the moment, and it gets very hot here in summer (typically 90F with several 100F+ days all summer), so I am thinking a fan would be nice for the girls. There is a little $30 one for sale on amazon, but it sounds too cheap to be of any real use.
 
Passive solar techniques worked for my coop. I have a deep overhang, about 18", on the south side. It shades the south wall 100% around the summer solstice. In fact, on June 21st there are a couple of inches of shade on the ground in front of the wall at noon.

A couple of tools someone posted the other day:
http://susdesign.com/overhang_annual/index.php
http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/maps/googleMapLocation.php

I also used rafter vent channels in the roof, and soffit vents at both ends of the roof. That allows the heat of the roof to warm air in the channel and flow out, to keep the heat from radiating into the coop. Home depot sells the channels, or you could just fab some yourself with cardboard. If you spray-glue cheap aluminum foil to the channels (either foam or cardboard) on the roof-side it makes an incredible barrier to radiant heat.

I also insulated the heck out of my coop with a combination of white bead-foam panels and foil-faced panels. I used the foil-faced foam in the rafters and on the bottom parts of the south walls - basically where the sun will hit the hardest. Also used some in the west wall. I covered my insulation with white melamine faced masonite to keep hens from eating it.

Ventilation in my coop is the pop door, a crank-open window, and a bunch of vents just below the rafter line at the highest part of the south wall. Any heat above ambient temperature just flows right out.

My coop is quite pleasant in the worst heat, rather than being an oven. If it was bigger, I'd hang out in there myself on hot August afternoons. Someday I'll have the money to do the whole treatment to my shop just like it.

{edit to fix broken link}
 
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If you are that concerned about heat, whatcha need isn't a solar fan in an enclosed-and-therefore-hot coop... whatcha need is at least one, possibly more, sides of the coop to be totally or almost-totally mesh. That way the coop will get no warmer than outdoor shade temperature... which is the best you could possibly hope to achieve with any fan ANYhow, and the open side(s) will do it much much better
wink.png


Good luck, have fun,

Pat
 
Quote:

<chuckle> Glad you could use the calculators. Of course the guy to thank is the guy that wrote the application, you know...the smart guy.
wink.png
I'm figuring I'll have ~1.75' on the south and ~4' on the west side, a 1.5' on the north, and probably a couple of feet on the east side. This will allow shade for the hot summer and warming sun for the winter. Like Pat said, you might want to add some more open air area to the coop. I'm hoping to have almost a whole wall of open air area. In the winter I'm planning on having a panel to cover that open area with. Down here in south Alabama it tends to get hot and muggy. Where are you located at?

Ed
 
Thank you for the links, they were very helpful!
 
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Depending on how cold it gets in winter where you live, a 3 sided coop may work. That is how I build mine. One whole wall is open air, providing plenty of ventilation. But our winters aren't really winters at all, never getting below about 35 or so and even then only for an hour or two. But our summers stay in the 100-110 range for months, so a closed coop would cook them.

edited to add: The roof of my main coop is a 5" thick, vinyl covered, hard foam rubber spa cover that I recycled, so it insulates REALLY well!
 
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Glad you could use the calculators. Of course the guy to thank is the guy that wrote the application, you know...the smart guy.
wink.png
I'm figuring I'll have ~1.75' on the south and ~4' on the west side, a 1.5' on the north, and probably a couple of feet on the east side. This will allow shade for the hot summer and warming sun for the winter. Like Pat said, you might want to add some more open air area to the coop. I'm hoping to have almost a whole wall of open air area. In the winter I'm planning on having a panel to cover that open area with. Down here in south Alabama it tends to get hot and muggy. Where are you located at?

Ed

I have already made a donation in gratitude for the work the guy who did those calculations and figured out how to present it so well. I can, and have done, those calculations many times but the idea of how to present it is far superior to anything I have ever done.

I live in west central Ohio. But I travel all over the world designing, building and equiping poultry and livestock live production facilities. I have even been a guest instructor at Auburn.

Often I am confronted with building sites that are not ideally oriented. Like sites that were blasted out of the side of a moutain in Puerto Rico. You get what is left after the rubble slides down the side of the mountain.In SE Asia there are religious customs in some areas that dictate the compas orientation of buildings. These, and other situations like them, are not always the best for eliminating sunlight intrusion on open sided structures. That site you discovered will make it quick and easy to plan those buildings.​
 
Quote:
I do
wink.png
Or rather, chicken planning fever!

I just can't help feeling sorry for ANYBODY (of any species) that has to be outside or even worse in an even hotter coop during the hot days here (although I know that there are places where it is even worse)
 

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