Any Hints or Tricks to Making Solar heating for Coop

[patandchickens]

Those thinking about solar heating should also think about ways to increase the amount of exposed thermal mass inside your coop. That will limit temps from getting too high during the day and store heat to keep night temps from getting as low. The classic thing for houses is exposed stone, concrete or cinderblock but this is not always as feasible (or as wise) in a chicken coop -- the classic greenhouse thing, probably more appropriate for coops, is sealed jugs and drums of water, with some airspace left in case of freezing.

That will make better use of your solar heating. Otherwise you're mostly just driving up daytime temps, not neccessarily so useful or desirable.

Have fun,

Pat

 

[chicksalot]

Quote:
You are right, this is something I use in my greenhouse & it works well to release the heat later...I don't know why I didn't think to transfer this idea to a coop. You have good brain cells patandchickens !!!

 

[vermontgal]

Thanks chicksalot and spookyevilone for the links to the heat grabber. There was a similar article in Mother Earth News a couple years ago, about a larger design that hung on the outside of the house. These look smaller and more doable... I have just a few home improvement projects on the list!

My chicken coop is built into the south-west corner of my barn and typically right around the winter solstice (sun least intense), on a sunny day with outside temp of 15°F, inside will be just above freezing, maybe 35-40°F.

Patandchickens is right about thermal mass, and I do need to add some. The thing about thermal mass is that it works both directions. If you have stone cold -- stones -- or even frozen water in jugs, it will tend to keep the coop cool. Once it is warmed up, then yes it will help keep the coop warmer overnight. Patandchickens is also right that having the coop stay cooler in the daytime can be helpful once the temps start getting a little higher in the spring (or if you live in a southern clime, even now). But, here in Vermont, I will take every BTU of thermal gain I can get on a sunny January day!

One solution to prevent thermal mass-cooling would be to have 2 sets of jugs, and to figure out a way to warm up the second set without simply bringing inside your house (which would warm the jugs OK, but at the expense of your home heating bill).

• Start by filling both sets up on a sunny day.

• Put one set inside the coop, and the other in a sunny location where they will heat up as much as possible. Before the sun goes down, bring the second set inside your house.

• Overnight, the ones inside the coop will dissipate heat. In the morning, they may be frozen or very cold. Take them out of the coop, and replace them with the ones that have been in your house overnight.

• Put the frozen jugs in a sunny place where they will warm up, hopefully to room temperature, and then bring them into your house before the sun goes down.

The key would be to have a place for the second set of jugs to warm up, that is not inside the chicken coop. Inside a cold frame would work great -- too bad my cold frame is under 2.5' of snow!

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
You're sure? I mean, thermal mass does not really lose you any BTUs overall. It just spreads them out over time. So instead of getting all yer air-temperature rise during daytime, when frostbite is really not such a concern anyhow, a large heat sink will 'skim off' some of that heat and store it for nighttime release.

The only time I could see when this would be pointless is if your daytime heat input is so small that there's no way it's going to make a meaningful dent in nighttime temperatures... but if that were the case, you aren't really doing meaningful solar heating anyhow, in any practical sense of the word, you know? Which I wouldn't think would be what you're trying to design anyhow.

it's NIGHTTIME temperatures that mostly need ameliorating in a coop.

Just a thought,

Pat

 

[Klorinth]

Not to push the point too much... But here is what my dogs get to enjoy. This setup is giving them a 20 degree increase in temp today, -27 to -7 celcius.

Pat and vermontgal,

You are both completely right from both perspectives. The flaw in my setup is that there is nothing to retain the heat gathered and release it at night, nor is there any real heat gain on very cloudy days. My dogs do come in at night and can be brought in on very cold cloudy days as well. These are definitely flaws that I need to fix when it comes to my coop design. I will not be able to bring the hens inside the house. But at least this is an easy thing for anyone to add to an existing coop.

At least the dogs seem to like it.