Building Material for Interior House

[pennyhaddock]

Can anyone provide an alternative to having wood as the interior of the coop/night time house? I am somewhat holding up my husbands progress on construction because I don't care to use wood due to the issues with mites, as well as wood not drying well when washed out...has anyone ever used hardy board or shower board, or plastic material and nailing/screwing it over the top of wood for easier cleaning and durability? We are somewhat newbies, any info provided will be helpful! Thank you.

 

[Elsveta641]

You can get smooth metal sheeting in a roll, that's what we use. It's made for making custom siding trim with a tool called a brake. It works beautifully and cleans up so nice. It's really good for wrapping dropping boards too .You just use a plastic putty knife and the poops fall right off. My husband calls it flashing but I'm not sure that's the correct term for the material or not

 

[pennyhaddock]

Thank you so much- this is so helpful...did you use wood and then place the flashing over the top of it or did you only use the flashing? Did you use the flashing for both the siding and the flooring? Do you find that using the metal holds heat inside the house?

 

[Elsveta641]

Thank you so much- this is so helpful...did you use wood and then place the flashing over the top of it or did you only use the flashing? Did you use the flashing for both the siding and the flooring? Do you find that using the metal holds heat inside the house?

We use it over the wood on the dropping boards and when we build a cage we put it over the wood on the floor to make it easy to clean. Because of the expense of the material, we avoid using it for large areas. On walls we use steel roofing panels over the wood framing. It does help keep it warmer in winter but that can backfire in the summer. Make sure if you use a lot of metal in the coop you have good ventilation. Drop vents are easy to make and very effective. On the exterior walls we use dutchlap or just whatever we have found extra of (peoples siding leftovers from doing a house etc.) I wouldn't try to do the entire exterior out of the flashing, even if you own a brake.
The best advantage of using metal on the interior walls and floor is that it makes it difficult or impossible for predators to get in and it cleans up so easy. Just make sure you dont use metal shovels, pitchforks etc because it will scratch and cause rust. We use plastic snow shovels etc. We have the flashing on the floor of small pens and all dropping boards, the walls of brooder boxes etc. The larger floors are concrete. The interior walls of ours is steel roofing and welded mesh and the buildings are stick frames with a dutchlap exterior and it's a good set up. Hope that's helpful