Coop Ventilation - Cold Climates

[aart]

I’m wondering if I can place an angled 2x4 (as shown in the 2nd from right vent) to decrease the air flowing into the coop without compromising the efficacy of the ventilation? I feel like it would work because fumes, moisture, and excess warmth can still escape the coop. There is still some air flow that comes through the ventilation slot to help circulate the air in the coop, but it is greatly reduced - thus not as ‘drafty’.

Can you all let me know your thoughts? Do you think this is a viable solution?

The whole ventilation without draft is such a hard think to achieve, in my opinion. I just don’t want a bunch of frostbit chickens come Winter.

It is indeed.
Even with great ventilation you may still have frostbite on single combed birds.
It's not caused by drafts but humidity and cold temps.
Some of the worst FB I've seen happened at about 30° and 70% humidity during a thaw. Hard to make the air drier inside the coop than it is outside.

As to whether blocking the eaves as you show is good idea or not, I'm not sure.
It's a touchy balance that can only be truly assessed by standing in the coop.
One good way to dampen eave vents is to put cardboard under rafters inside at eaves to direct the airflow up higher(12-24"), where hopefully it can escape at a higher point taking moist ammonia laden air with it.

Could you show the inside of coop and also the whole roof?
You have great eave venting there but where does the flow from those go?
How are you measuring the 'draft' you feel?
Air movement is OK, good in fact, as long as it's not strong enough to literally ruffle feathers of bird at roost.
Have you seen this thread?
http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1048597/ventilated-but-free-of-drafts

 

[Acre4Me]

Great coop! Personally would not block the vents as you propose. As @aart mentioned, you could direct the air up from a piece of cardboard inside. My first thought was to keep those eaves open all year, but close up anything below that during deep winter, so birds can stay warm. We have open eaves and a single slant roof - open all year. But we also have a window (not in front of roosts), and large side vents. The side vents get covered in deep winter bc those would cause drafts on the birds. We vary how much the window is open depending on how cold and windy it is.

You know your site location best, so where are your worst/main winter winds coming from? Can you block those with a bit of solid fence? Or maybe stacked/secured bales of hay thru the winter? We placed our coop 2 feet behind our barn, so it is fully protected from the west winds, which are primary wicked winter winds for us.

Good luck!

 

[Chwicks]

Here are a couple of pictures - showing how mine turned out... I am very happy with the functionality. I included a close up of the chain I attached to hold it open (i just drive a screw part way into the flap and hook the chain on the screw. super easy, and not expensive.

Thanks so much! We have a similar set up on the inside of our coop where the white A/C vents are shown in my picture. We need to attach the hinges and paint the wood though. We are going to do that in the next week or two as the weather improves and the chicks are out in the run more. Yours looks great!! Thanks again!

 

[Chwicks]

It is indeed.
Even with great ventilation you may still have frostbite on single combed birds.
It's not caused by drafts but humidity and cold temps.
Some of the worst FB I've seen happened at about 30° and 70% humidity during a thaw. Hard to make the air drier inside the coop than it is outside.

As to whether blocking the eaves as you show is good idea or not, I'm not sure.
It's a touchy balance that can only be truly assessed by standing in the coop.
One good way to dampen eave vents is to put cardboard under rafters inside at eaves to direct the airflow up higher(12-24"), where hopefully it can escape at a higher point taking moist ammonia laden air with it.

Could you show the inside of coop and also the whole roof?
You have great eave venting there but where does the flow from those go?
How are you measuring the 'draft' you feel?
Air movement is OK, good in fact, as long as it's not strong enough to literally ruffle feathers of bird at roost.
Have you seen this thread?
http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1048597/ventilated-but-free-of-drafts

FB is a big concern of ours, but I’m hoping it won’t be too much of an issue because we tend to have pretty cold and dry winters here; except for transition months. Water freeze and sub zero temps are another hurdle we know we’ll have to conquer.

There’s definitely flow inside the coop, but I haven’t seen any ruffled feathers from it. I’m always chilly in there in the cooler temps, but I don’t have those lovely feathers. Lol (my husband keeps reminding me of this when I carry on about inside temps). When we built the coop we installed insulation inside the walls and then covered every wall with 1/4” hardware cloth before installing the interior plywood. I keep telling him I don’t know why the coop temp is the same temp as the ambient air when we did all that work. ‍ We didn’t insulate the ceiling because we need the ventilation.

It’s cloudy out today, so I’ll take more pictures tomorrow when the lighting is better, but I’ve attached a few additional pics of our coop. The winds are usually out of the North (backside of the coop that I’m trying to dampen) and usually flow out the ventilation on the front eves of the coop (front wall of coop is 1.5 to 2’ higher than back wall). We also have 5 windows on the coop that we open on warmer days to keep good airflow and to cool the interior.

I’m measuring draft by placing some flagging on the hardware cloth inside the coop where the ventilation slots are located. Prior to the dampener the flagging would get completely horizontal with a strong wind. Once dampened, the flagging on the dampened vent moved a little, but it didn’t get horizontal like the non-dampened vent next to it (baseline vent (lol)). I also got a step stool and stood up there with my hands by each opening. I could tell there was less wind coming from the dampened vent. There is still a 3-4 inch gap between the 2x4 and the actual hardware cloth/vent.

I have read that thread so many times. I spent over a year researching before we got our chickens, and about 8 months before we started building our coop.

I’ll post more pictures of the roof and interior ventilation as soon as weather permits.

Thanks so much for your help, time and input.

 

[Chwicks]

Great coop! Personally would not block the vents as you propose. As @aart mentioned, you could direct the air up from a piece of cardboard inside. My first thought was to keep those eaves open all year, but close up anything below that during deep winter, so birds can stay warm. We have open eaves and a single slant roof - open all year. But we also have a window (not in front of roosts), and large side vents. The side vents get covered in deep winter bc those would cause drafts on the birds. We vary how much the window is open depending on how cold and windy it is.

You know your site location best, so where are your worst/main winter winds coming from? Can you block those with a bit of solid fence? Or maybe stacked/secured bales of hay thru the winter? We placed our coop 2 feet behind our barn, so it is fully protected from the west winds, which are primary wicked winter winds for us.

Good luck!

Thanks! I’ll have to look into the cardboard idea more. I’m not sure how that would work with our interior roof setup/ceiling.

The worst winds come out of the North, which is the back side of the coop where half of the eave ventilation is located. We’re going to keep the lower ventilation sealed up during the winter, but we’ll likely still get good draft from the upper ventilation. I’m thinking we may just dampen the 3 or 4 ventilation holes nearest their roosts and leave the remaining on the backside (North) open for circulation. We live in a pretty forested area, but the winds are still pretty gusty here. No snow or rain can get into the coop, but it still feels like the winds aren’t hindered to satisfy me.

Thanks again for taking the time to comment and offer help/advice.

 

[aart]

I keep telling him I don’t know why the coop temp is the same temp as the ambient air when we did all that work.

It's the ventilation....kinda want it like that.

The worst winds come out of the North, which is the back side of the coop where half of the eave ventilation is located.

I'd block the eave vents on the windward side and see what that does.

I’m measuring draft by placing some flagging on the hardware cloth inside the coop where the ventilation slots are located.

Put the flagging over the roosts....which I don't see BTW.

But, man, nice coop and run!!

 

[trumpeting_angel]

Yes, gorgeous. I've read this thread but I can't remember - are you still figuring out where to put the roosts? Or are they just not visible in the pictures?

My aim is to have my vents well above the chickens' heads when they are on the roosts. Still building. [where's the emoji for pulling one's hair out?]

 

[Alaskan]

However, it seems like the coop is a bit drafty with all of the ventilation - and I know we want ventilation/circulation, but not drafts; especially given we will have VERY cold temperatures in our area in the Winter.

How cold? Not your lowest ever temp, but the coldest it is for a week or more. So lowest sustained cold.

As to eve ventilation. Not sure why so many people like it. It didn't work for me. Maybe because of my wind patterns???

But snow would blow and swirl in through those vents... and yes I have decent overhangs on the roof.

In your case you might just want to experiment and see what happens. I just stood in the coop during a snow storm with a bunch of feed sacks and stuffed them into those eve vents and watched.

I found that what works best for me is ventilation BELOW the poop board, and higher ventilation that is very well protected.

Put the flagging over the roosts....which I don't see BTW.

Yep... I do have drafty coops, but my PERCHES aren't drafty. I have poop trays under the perches, and a good draft free wall behind the perch... so no air movement at perch level.

 

[Chwicks]

Yes, gorgeous. I've read this thread but I can't remember - are you still figuring out where to put the roosts? Or are they just not visible in the pictures?

My aim is to have my vents well above the chickens' heads when they are on the roosts. Still building. [where's the emoji for pulling one's hair out?]

I’m so sorry for my delayed response. We do have the roosts in, but I didn’t have a picture at the time. We installed them on some bracket mounts so that we can remove them and clean all the poo off of them each week. We don’t have the lanterns and stuff in there now because they’re older, but you can get the idea.

 

[Chwicks]

How cold? Not your lowest ever temp, but the coldest it is for a week or more. So lowest sustained cold.

As to eve ventilation. Not sure why so many people like it. It didn't work for me. Maybe because of my wind patterns???

But snow would blow and swirl in through those vents... and yes I have decent overhangs on the roof.

In your case you might just want to experiment and see what happens. I just stood in the coop during a snow storm with a bunch of feed sacks and stuffed them into those eve vents and watched.

I found that what works best for me is ventilation BELOW the poop board, and higher ventilation that is very well protected.



Yep... I do have drafty coops, but my PERCHES aren't drafty. I have poop trays under the perches, and a good draft free wall behind the perch... so no air movement at perch level.

I’m so sorry for my delayed response. Thanks so much for taking the time to help with my situation. Our common lowest sustained cold is usually around -10 (w/o wind chill). I’m hoping we have it figured out, but we’ll be finding out for sure very soon. Lol

Thanks again!