COLD WEATHER- Ventilation?

[Welshies]

Which side faces south to the winter sun?

Which side faces the direction of the winter winds?

The window is south, the ventilation is to the north. It's not how I wanted it, but it's how my help placed it, unfortunately.

 

[Howard E]

If you have the time.......google "quisenberry fool proof house", then spend some time boning up on what he has to say about things. Some of this is physics as much as anything. As true today as it was back then.

My guess is you may discover some errors made in your housing that is contributing to your problems. This stuff was all known 100 years ago.

BTW, I place no judgements on anyone when they do things out of ignorance (read lack of knowledge). A person doesn't know what they don't know. Its what happens after they become informed that matters.

But even with all that, if it's -50F actual temps outside, I would not fault anyone for putting in a heater.

 

[Welshies]

If you have the time.......google "quisenberry fool proof house", then spend some time boning up on what he has to say about things. Some of this is physics as much as anything. As true today as it was back then.

My guess is you may discover some errors made in your housing that is contributing to your problems. This stuff was all known 100 years ago.

BTW, I place no judgements on anyone when they do things out of ignorance (read lack of knowledge). A person doesn't know what they don't know. Its what happens after they become informed that matters.

But even with all that, if it's -50F actual temps outside, I would not fault anyone for putting in a heater.

Thanks for your input! I will see what he has to say

 

[Lonesome Dough]

I watch all these posts on ventilation but nobody ever mentions installing an electric vent fan, why? I'm just about done on the remodel of our coop and we'll get our first birds this spring, part of my upgrades was installing a louvered electric fan just below ceiling level. the fan is 12x12 and when turned on the air flow pushes open the louvers and gravity closes them. I had our electrician wire it to a switch outside the coop so I could turn it on w/o disturbing the girls. Does anybody else use a vent fan?

 

[junebuggena]

I watch all these posts on ventilation but nobody ever mentions installing an electric vent fan, why? I'm just about done on the remodel of our coop and we'll get our first birds this spring, part of my upgrades was installing a louvered electric fan just below ceiling level. the fan is 12x12 and when turned on the air flow pushes open the louvers and gravity closes them. I had our electrician wire it to a switch outside the coop so I could turn it on w/o disturbing the girls. Does anybody else use a vent fan?

There is a very simple reason, dander. Chickens produce a lot of dander, which will coat everything in a layer of dust. Fans would need to be cleaned regularly to deal with the chicken dust. Dust build up on overheated fan motors can be a fire hazard.

 

[Blooie]

I have an exhaust fan out there. It's a mobile home exhaust fan designed for use in old mobile homes, like ours is with the 2" walls rather than the standard depth of stick frame houses. We picked it up at a older mobile home supply place and relied heavily on it! It has a pull chain that opens it. It vents directly outside. Normally as soon as you pull the chain the cover on the outside opens and the fan starts running. That's how the one in my kitchen operates. My hubby is a professional electrician. He wired the same model of fan we bought specifically for the coop so that we can either pull the chain and just have the cover open without the fan actually running, close it completely, or we can open the cover and then flip a light switch in the coop to operate the motor and fan. Best thing we ever did! That fan cover was open 24/7, 365 days a year. If we needed more ventilation, say in winter or during the super hot days of summer, we ran it. Otherwise it was just additional passive air flow. The one in my kitchen running as we type, and has been in this old mobile since it was built in 1976.

Yep, dust and dander would accumulate on the one in the coop faster than it does in the house, but in the house we have the added issue of cooking grease. But because the fan cover was open all of the time in the coop and the dust is drier, wind usually took care of that, and if it didn't a quick blast with Ken's air compressor during major coop cleanouts took care of it. I've mentioned that fan many times on BYC.

 

[NNYchick]

I was just actually thinking the same thing the other day about a fan, what about the fans used in houses over top of stoves to vent. Now I know why.

 

[Blooie]

See my post above!

 

[Blooie]

The open fan is right above the people door.

 

[NNYchick]

See my post above!

LOL we must have been typing at the same time. I am going to look into getting a vent fan when we add on this spring. My issue is if I leave to much open without any plastic I get snow in the run/coop if I close it up in the extreme temps my chickens have frost on them. I also have only 8 silkie so it is a very large area, so I get no heat gain from them. In the spring I am adding 5 foot on to the end of it and making it more like a coop (8x5) with insulated walls and windows to use for the nest boxes and roosting. Of course my first winter has to be the one that we are having crazy temps, its normal for us to have - 30 but only for a day or 2 then it gets back up to above 0 but this year we had 2 straight weeks with negatives in the double digits.