about insulation

[Rockpile99]

One Idea for some really cheap insulation...

I'm building my tractor using some old/used insulated garage doors for the walls. They are usually rated between R8 up to R14 (house quality). Everything is already sandwiched between two skins so there's no mess. I'm just going to stack them up and screw them onto my framing. Presto - Instant insulated walls.

Luckily there is a garage door business in the family so coming by the free sections was easy. Most companies have to pay to dispose of the old sections and are happy to give them away to someone that can re-purpose them. It's at least worth a phone call!

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Then it is pointless to wear a coat in wintertime if you are not going to also wear gloves, thick insulated boots, a scarf and a hat (maybe a balaclava)?

No

There is no conflict *whatsoever*.

What insulation does is reduce heat loss through the walls, thus better retaining whatever heat is in the coop (from chickens, from daytime highs, from the residual heat of the ground, and/or for some people from electric lights).

Obviously you have to have ventilation, but you STILL want to retain as much heat as possible. Especially in colder type climates! So insulation works *with* your ventilation to help you get good air quality (not too humid or ammonia-y) while not overly chilling the coop.

Also insulation prevents condensation from forming where the warmer more humid coop air contacts cold surfaces; when condensation (dampness or frost, depending on temperature) forms, that moisture is no longer in the air to get whoooshed out the vents and thus the more condensation you have the wider-open ventilation you need to dehumidify the air. This is especially noticeable for those with metal walls or ceilings, and on glass windows, but can happen on wooden walls too if it gets cold enough out.

Of COURSE people insulate houses despite having ventilation going on. Always have, always will. In old houses people would stuff newspapers or sawdust in the walls, and drapery etc on the walls (what do you think castle tapestries were for?

) despite *lots* of airflow thru the house. For the past, I dunno, hundredish years, houses in North America have been routinely insulated (at least in cold climates and some hot climates) while having considerable ventilation in the form of air leaks. And in the past 10-20 years, as houses have become more airtight (while still being insulated), people *pay lotsa money for specialized heat-exchange ventilation systems*.

Believe me, you don't want to live in an unventilated home. Some have been built, especially in the 80s and 90s. They are *mold farms*.

Same deal with coops. Talk to people who have insulated coops, you'll see what I mean.


Pat

 

[Raleigh]

Very interesting!

Here are my thoughts.

Although I'm a novice to chicken coops, I've had a decade of experience in designing and building high performance homes. Ventilation in the crawl space and attic is outside the homes thermal envelope (the insulated areas), thus it does not support what you are saying. Air exchangers recapture the existing homes heat as the air is ventilated. This would certainly be worthwhile in a coop, but it requires electricity. The coat/gloves theory has some holes too. Of course wearing a coat but no gloves could still keep you warm. But an insulated/vented coop is more the equivalent a coat laying on the ground beside you. Not much value.

I think what you may be trying to get at is the need for a coop with high thermal mass to help regulate the temparture. There are also several passive heating/cooling methods that could work with the high volume of ventilation that is required.

The irony is that I am insulating/venting the coop I am building now... so I'm not fully convinced that it is worthless. I just think there is a much better design that could be used.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Meaning no offense at all, I think you may find it useful to pay attention to those who have actually worked with chicken coops over the years (and other livestock buildings in cold climates), because this is not a theory issue, it's a question of what *works* and what effects insulation observably *has*.

, I've had a decade of experience in designing and building high performance homes. Ventilation in the crawl space and attic is outside the homes thermal envelope (the insulated areas), thus it does not support what you are saying. Air exchangers recapture the existing homes heat as the air is ventilated.

I'm not talking about attic or crawlspace ventilation; as you say it is fairly irrelevant to this subject.

The INTERIOR of the home must still be ventilated though. That is precisely the POINT of a heat exchanger, to allow you to minimize heat loss *while ventilating the house*. (Previously, houses were built loosely enough that they 'ventilated' themselves through little cracks and spaces in siding/walls/doorframes/windows/etc). That is to say, yes, the living space of a typical house IS ventilated, and the house is insulated too.

As you must know, being in construction, if you build a house whose living space is sealed basically airtight, it will become a mold farm (and you can get problems with chemical fume buildup too). So, all houses' living spaces *are* ventilated, and yet houses *are* insulated, which sort of undermines your argument that nobody ventilates+insulates houses

Of course wearing a coat but no gloves could still keep you warm. But an insulated/vented coop is more the equivalent a coat laying on the ground beside you.

Look, the coop has some heat inside it, yes? Partly being pumped in on an ongoing basis from several sources, and partly just residual heat from the daytime. What you want is to keep as much of that heat in the coop as possible. Yes, you have to have ventilation open (and no, nobody has a heat exchanger on their coop vents

), but you can still reduce OTHER sources of heat loss (i.e radiation thru walls and ceiling) and that most certainly DOES keep the coop warmer.

Perhaps you are misunderstanding the concept of winter ventilation? It need not mean "all the walls are constructed of nothing but wire mesh and the wind whistles through as if you were outdoors"... it just means, to some degree or another, "there is airflow".

Honestly, this is not a theory issue, it is the way coops and other livestock buildings observably *perform*, in real life.

I think what you may be trying to get at is the need for a coop with high thermal mass to help regulate the temparture.

No, that is certainly an asset in reducing nighttime temperature drops (discussed extensively in some other threads on this topic) but thermal mass will not, in and of itself, warm a coop. Indeed it tends to *reduce* peak daytime temperatures, so in that sense you could equally well say that it 'cools' the coop to some degree! "All" thermal mass does (mind, I have always been a proponent of creative use of thermal mass in the coop) is it changes how rapidly the coop's interior responds to changes in outdoor temperature.

But, even if a good whack of thermal mass is part of your strategy for your coop (and it is in mine, as I've got a nice big ol' slab floor, much of it exposed), you STILL BENEFIT FROM INSULATION. As the slab, or water barrels, or whatever you're using, release their heat slowly at night, the less of it radiates out thru the walls and ceiling, the warmer the coop will stay for longer.

It needn't be expensive to insulate, either, if a person is willing to scrounge. Mind, in most climates it is not *necessary* as such -- but it makes it a lot easier for you to keep healthful and comfortable conditions for the chickens.

Regards,

Pat​

 

[AtRendeAcres]

I visit distant family out there & come back saying Ay for six months!!! LOL

you do have rough winters!

I sugest building a 4x4/5 coop inside your metal shed- this way you have the rest of the area for storage! making it 4' tall it would also only need a heat lamp on timer (for a little heat & so they have 14 hours light to lay!)


Austrolorps & Chantelcers would be fine!

 

[AtRendeAcres]

I am sorry I wanted to add a link (built his coop in garage)

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=9429-City_Garage_Coo

 

[vermontgal]

chick'n'run, a heat lamp is certainly cheaper to buy than insulation - but it is NOT cheaper to run over the many years that you will want to have chickens!

Your climate is a little warmer than mine. I insulated my coop, and for 4 birds last winter, I ran a 100 watt heat emitter only when it got below -25C, which you say is your coldest temps. Our coldest last winter was around -34C! Especially with chanteclers, if you insulate your coop, you will probably not need to heat. That is very good - you don't have to pay for the electricity, and it is safer (heaters bring risk of fire).

Check out my BYC pages on heating/insulation, and chicken-heating for very small flocks. (Temps on these pages are Fahrenheit, "thanks" to former US President Ronald Reagan, and with my apologies.)

 

[Renee']

But an insulated/vented coop is more the equivalent a coat laying on the ground beside you. Not much value.

How about it's the equivalent to wearing a coat unzipped/unbuttoned? That seems like a better analogy???

 

[Raleigh]

Pat, Maybe a graph could help quantify this discussion.... and it would make it easier for novice coop builders to understand. The graph would show the performance relationship between the amount of venting and the amount of insulation. My personal coop acutally has an insulated section in the back and an uninsulated section in the front. I can collect some real world data from this and help determine if its a coat with no mittens, an unzipped coat, or a coat laying on the ground beside you.

 

[patandchickens]

Raleigh, sure a graph would be great (I am a scientist, I always like More Data

) but I don't know who'd be in a position to produce one. You'd need two identically built coops, side by side, with the same chicken population, to get really *exactly* what you're looking for. Insulated vs uninsulated parts of one coop is not a good comparison, because there are a lot of other factors that come into play, although certainly if you're curious go ahead and stick thermometers out there if you haven't already

As far as patchier data goes, how about the following -- all three of the following buildings are within 150 feet of each other and on slab. Outdoor winter air temperatures get down to the -30s C (the temps given below are not necessarily *normal* nighttime temps in the buildings, they're the lowest it ever gets in a typical winter)

My 20x25 garage, attached to the house but uninsulated and lightly ventilated (i.e not entirely weathertight

), gets down to -20 C in the winter.

My 35x50ish barn (no animals in it), with moderately insulated walls, an uninsulated drop ceiling in most of it, uninsulated loft, and considerably more 'unintentional ventilation' (gaping holes

) than the garage, gets down to -12 to -15 C in the winter.

My 15x40 chicken building, with insulated 6" stud walls and well-insulated ceiling, gets down to -8 C in the winter, with a comparable amount of ventilation to the other two buildings. This is with 15 or fewer chickens in it, not enough to make a big heat contribution.

I know these are larger than typical coops but they're what i happen to know NUMBERS for. Considerable experience with livestock buildings makes it clear that the same trend exists for smaller buildings (insulated vs uninsulated) as well, I just can't rattle off actual numbers for you.

It isn't a theory question, it is a well known established fact. Though for people new to the subject, certainly if a good dataset existed it might be a useful educational aid.

Pat