I have no dog in this fight but to say the coops he builds look beautiful and I think the price looks commensurate with their high quality. I have a construction company and we rebuild homes that have sustained fire and water damage. All my employees seem like good friends of mine when I'm around. When I'm not, some of them run me down because they are just used to running down employers and it's considered a way of fitting in with others. I think some of them really dislike me but just don't show it but will never tell me why.
I one time mixed up two employees names and their checks came out wrong. I fixed it immediately and then I had to go to the bank for something unrelated to this. One of the employees was in front of me and didn't realize it and just ran me down to the teller stating how stupid I was to make such a mistake. Also told her that I once gave the wrong directions to him for a job and it was almost 200 miles off (and that was true)! Boy, he really thought I was a moron for making some mistakes. Wish we could all be so perfect. When he turned around, I was just smiling at him and he waited outside to tell me how sorry he was. He went on about how he really liked me and this was just a bad habit of his. I got in my truck, rolled down the window and told him he was fired as I was driving away.
Anyhow, I wouldn't base an opinion on these coops based on one former employee's said treatment of others. I would believe the lack of eco-materials. That's just hard to do 100% or it's just very easy to do if you lower your standards to what actually defines eco-friendly. Me? I care a lot about the environment. I don't think timber to lumber and chemicals to paint is one of our pressing problems.
Now about these coops, what would I do if I bought one? I would buy some $6/tube construction adhesive glue and a couple pair of cleaning gloves and push glue into every interior seam you can find. I usually use about 5 tubes on my coops when I'm finished with them. I wouldn't mess up the pretty paint job, just do everywhere else. This glue will be stronger than the wood itself.
Once upon a time, due to a mix-up on some engineered plans, a foundation contractor built a foundation 6" longer than the house pack we ordered way up in the middle of nowhere in Colorado. We used a back-hoe to get our pack up the hill to our site. Swapping out the house pack was almost as scary as redoing the foundation. What to do, what to do? We bolted the rim of the house pack to the inside of the foundation and glued it to the concrete. Mind you, we didn't use standard liquid nails for that glue job but my point remains. We built a 15 ton building that is being suspended by 30 tubes of glue. The bolts? Get serious. The shear strength of those are less than 2000 lbs. Our engineer thought they would lend credibility to our idea. That was 20 years ago nobody has called me yet to tell me the house suddenly dropped to the bottom of the crawlspace.
Back on topic...
About warping, freezing and heaving. Don't let them get soaking wet. If it snows, brush them off. If it rains, keep them out of puddles. Set them on wood preferably (like a sunken 6x6), not dirt, especially not concrete. It's one thing to have rain run off it, it's another to sit in a mud puddle and absorb water constantly.
One more thing, get ducks. Way easier on grass, less mud muddles.
And one more thing, people start out with a run but immediately want to go open range. You will too someday.
