Hi there, My hubby and I are retro fitting our metal shed and I am stumped about the windows we are cutting into it. I am putting in windows for ventilation during the summer because it gets so hot here. Will all the light those windoes let in be an issue for laying during the warmer months? During the winter we plan on building insulated boards to cover the windows and keep the draft out. I just need to know we are doing it right? should we be doing something different? I found a picture that i am using for inspiration on our shed design. This is what we are doing, just slightly smaller side windows and none in the front. i got this picture from redhotchick's reply post to https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/592031/metal-shed-as-coop The interior we plan on doing something similar to this shed i also found on BYC. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/319754/converting-8x10-metal-shed-to-coop-picture-heavy I loved this thread for ideas, my husband spent all morning planning it out and drawing up the prints for it. buying the lumber this week! picking up the babies next wednesday!
It sounds like you have put a lot of thought into this, but I think it will get quite hot in there because of the metal, and insulating a metal building would be a lot of trouble. It gets very hot where I live and I have an open air coop (basically framing, roof and hardware cloth). I have a small, wooden "bedroom" with nest boxes. The windows in this structure are covered with hardware cloth and home-made shutters which remain open most of the time.
The last couple summers have been blistering here, which is abnormal from what I hear. We are using the shed because it came with the house we bought and sitting empty in the back yard for a couple years now. I have heard of people being successful with metal shed conversions, and I have been doing a ton of research on the matter. I just hope all the light coming in will be ok, and that it will be enough ventilation.
I bought and installed double hung windows in my coop (south side pic shown below). The windows were on sale at Home Depot for under 20 bucks. The nice thing about slider windows is that you can open them for ventilation in the summer and closed in the winter they offer solar heating (this would be better than covering the windows with boards in the Winter). You will want hardware cloth or mesh for the windows (mine have some horse fencing over them to keep the goats from knocking out the windows). You will want additional vents up high besides the windows. It sounds like you are doing alot of planning and it will be a great coop! Slider windows in coop. Hard to tell in the picture but I have side walls to block window light from the nesting area. This helps create a dark area for the nests.
