Coop Design - Electricity Questions

[rmshah37]

Hi all,

I'm designing a chicken coop and I want to have a water heater and automated door for it. I don't really want to run an extension cord from my house to the coop (as it's quite far), but I want to have this powered appropriately. Do you have any recommendations for batteries that I could buy that can run this coop for an extended period of time?

I was also thinking of buying a solar panel and have it top off this battery as needed.

I'm not too familiar with the electricity aspect of this all so all suggestions are welcome!

Thank you!

 

[RPClark]

How far is "quite far"? I ran electricity to my coop this summer; about 130 feet from where the power takes off at the house.

There's a thread with some thoughts on the subject at this link:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/725724/solar-water-heating

 

[ECBW]

Solar and other power sources may be unreliable.

Regular power is the most reliable. The distance you can use an extension depends on the power draw, voltage drop and conductor size. I use 100' of #14 for a heater of 40w and a CFL. The cord is plugged into a GFI outlet.

The cord is there only in the winter.

 

[rmshah37]

I have about an acre of land between where I wanted to have the coop and my house so it'd be a pretty long haul.

I'd prefer a battery system if possible

 

[justlooking]

You need to figure out how much power you need and the voltage required to run the heater and door.

Lets assume the heater and door are AC powered so in addition to the battery you will need an inverter, solar panels and charge controller.

The power draw from the automatic door will be negligible so lets just consider the water heater.

If the water heater is 50W you will need 1200W/Hr per day. For a 12V system that is 100A/Hr. That is slightly more than the rated capacity of a standard car battery plus you should not regularly take batteries below 50% of rating (deep cycles can do better). So this means you will at least need 2 batteries.

But this assumes that you can get a full charge at least everyday (in the winter). If you assume you can get 6hrs of charging time a day you would need a solar panel that could deliver 200W continuously during winter daylight hours every day.

A 200W solar panel you find cheap on the internet will not do this; they are rated at summer sun intensity at noon and the exact right angle to the sun. You would need at least 500W of panels but this still assumes you get sun everyday.

Now its going to snow for a few days so you double the capacity of the system and end up with 4 batteries and 1000W of solar panels..................I'd run the extension cord.

JL

 

[ECBW]

I have about an acre of land between where I wanted to have the coop and my house so it'd be a pretty long haul. 

Sorry but 1acre does not tell how long the run is.

 

[aart]

Quote: Noooo.....but it does tell us how far they'd have to run an electrical cord.....which is what the subject is.

 

[TerryH]

Noooo.....but it does tell us how far they'd have to run an electrical cord.....which is what the subject is.

Think they were saying that the shape of the acre would have to be known for the electrical cord run distance.

 

[aart]

Quote: Ohh hahaha.... I was thinking chicken run....not electrical run....my bad, sorry @ECBW .

 

[TerryH]

Ohh hahaha.... I was thinking chicken run....not electrical run....my bad, sorry @ECBW
.

Our property is a little over an acre. It's 115' wide and 408' long. Not a huge problem for a cord one way but the other...