how much roof overhang on open air coop

[floridagramps1]

I am building open air coop 8x10 w large screened window openings on 2 long walls. I want to minimize wind blown rain. Now I am thinking an 8 in 12 roof pitch with 12 inches of overhang. Should I increase the overhang to 18 or 24. The 8x4 roosting area will be plywood protected on 3 sides

 

[RNAOGEA]

We have 2 foot overhang on ours and would not change it. It gives extra room for cleaning and egg collecting in bad weather (Louisiana) and really helps keep the inside better protected against wind blown rain. I would definitely recomend 2 foot.

 

[cmom]

All of my coops are enclosed but we will be building another one which will be open air. The plan is to have it higher in the middle to walk down and lower on the sides sort of an A-Frame.

 

[wyododge]

Kinda depends if it is the high side or the low side. High side overhang 24"+ will be a heck of a sail and will transfer a lot of pressure to your coop walls, low side and you might run into head room problems, which can put a lot of acute pressure on your forehead. You might have to attend confession a couple extra times a week too.

But.... I would get as much overhang as possible, 12" really is not that much.

 

[Linn Bee]

Of course you will site the building so the windows are on the lee side of your prevailing winds. That alone will make a big difference in blowing rain getting into the coop. 'Protection on three sides' sounds like you're putting the windows in adjacent corners.

If you want to minimize blowing rain then you'll have to go with larger than 1 ft eaves. You could use 1 ft. on the closed in sides and 2 ft. on the open sides. Or you could add overhang by extending the roof line just above the windows.

Love, Linn B (aka Smart Red) * * * Nesting with 5 Australorp and 5 Lt. Brahma hens plus 'The Count of Monte Cristo' - or Monte, for short - one beautiful, well-behaved, hard-working, Australorp rooster, in south-est, central-est Wisconsin.

 

[swatchick]

I don't have much overhang on my three sided coop, which is south facing, so I made a 6mil plastic "window" to go over the open areas that would allow blowing rain in and I put that on when the weather looks likely to get ugly.

 

[floridagramps1]

I should have added the following. The front side of coop on 10 foot wall will have a 3 foot square screened window with shutters mounted in tracks so that shutters can be closed when the weather gets nasty. On the other long wall, I will have a 2 foot high screened window high on the wall so that overhang prevents most or all of windblown rain from entering. I will build these walls next week and post pics

 

[ChickEngineer]

My coop is 7' in the front and 6 1/2' in the rear. I have a 12" overhang front and sides, 6" in the rear. We had some pretty strong winds with rain lately and the run got a little wet around the edges, coop area stayed dry.
The vent area for the coop is open on three sides, 8" front and tapers down to 4" at the rear of the sides.

 

[elmo]

Just to clarify, when you say "screened windows" you don't mean window screen, right? You mean windows screened with welded wire/hardware cloth.

 

[florida lee]

I'm in Florida and of course a lot of summer rain storms. I have about 14" overhang, wish I had made it 24". I got a lot of blown in rain, so I made bahama shutters. they worked geat, plenty of air thru coop and has stopped almost all the rain from getting in. I can swing the shutter out from the wall at the bottom to get even more air flow.