Linoleum floor

[joletabey]

I want to put linoleum (spelling?) on the floor of my coop - should I paint or seal the wood underneath it first? I have a floorless coop that I am raising up onto an 18" high wood platform - the platform is built out of decking materials and is solid, not just a frame. But I think the linoleum will make it easier to clean - again, do you all think I need to paint or seal the wood first?
Thanks!!!!

 

[mayden]

I don't think painting or sealing the decking would be necessary. The mastic and flooring will keep it from absorbing moisture. I have 1/4 fencing for a floor that was recycled from a friend and I just put pine shavings over it and do the deep litter method. The nice thing about decking to me is water drains through it and with flooring it will just sit there and spread out over a bigger area. Just my opinion.,

 

[patandchickens]

I would for sure paint (or in some other fashion seal the wood) under the vinyl flooring. The reason is that unless you absolutely slather the whole surface with adhesive (and I would not really recommend adhesive unless this is meant to be a short-term structure, see below), there *will* be space for moisture to creep under the vinyl, and then it will get rotty.

Unless you don't care if the structure doesn't last too many years, I'd suggest stapling through battens, for affixing the vinyl flooring --with the addition of some areas of adhesive if it's a very large floor, but not gluing the whole thing down. I know glue works fine in a house but a coop is not a house, it is FAR damper and experiences more moisture intrusion (leakage from walls/roof, waterer leaks, waterer spills, rain blown in, snow and mud tracked in by chickens, etc). If you glue the floor down, you have a pretty good chance that rot will still set in, only because the vinyl will be a real bugger to remove it'll be a lot harder to do much of anything about it. I do caulk (under the edge battens, so no caulking is exposed to chickens) around the edges of my vinyl flooring, which helps.

Well <afterthought> I suppose if you're planning to hose the coop down a lot, as a few people do, probably gluing the cr*p out of the entire vinyl sheet is the best thing to do. Easier just not to hose the coop down, though

Anyhow, painting/sealing under the vinyl is smart and if you use some leftover dribs and drabs of paint that you can probably get for free, it needn't cost you anything except a small amount of time. It *will* prolong the life of the floor.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[sandy sea]

We painted our floor first then put down the squares. Works great and is easy to clean. I also used the squares on top of the nest boxes, poop comes off easiers that way.

 

[johncm]

Linoleum is great for a coop, cleans off very easily.

 

[EweSheep]

I use horse rubber mats.

 

[wombat]

We didn't paint; we put adhesive under the vinyl flooring, covering the entire surface. We also calked around the edges. So far, so good.

On the other hand, we put ours into a large tray that covers the floor, and can be slid out for cleaning. There's a second floor under the tray, also covered with vinyl flooring, installed the same way.

So far, though, I have not had an issue with moisture getting under the flloring, or getting under the tray. Your mileage may vary. We did use a roll of flooring, not individual squares.

 

[joletabey]

Thank you!!! I didn't even think about adhesive. . . .the platform is slightly bigger than the coop and I was thinking the weight of the coop and a few screws would do it. . . .

 

[wombat]

The brand we used was Roberts Multi-purpose carpeting and sheet vinyl adhesive. We got it at Home Depot.

We used standard silicon-based calk around the edges. So far, it doesn't look like anyone's dug down through the wood chips and eaten the calk.

The flooring cost more than paint, but it sure does clean up easily.

 

[michiganlarry]

I painted the floor in my coop with two coats of good gloss latex paint, let it dry for a few days and then covered it with vinyl flooring. I didn't glue is down though, just nailed it around the edges with roofing nails. Should be much easier to change down the road. Ever try to scrape off glued down flooring??