New Design and Alternative techniques

[LynneP]

We're experimenting with some plastic, too, Pat. Home Hardware started to carry 14 ml vinyl sheeting, so we oput it on a northwest door of the run.

I think next year we'll use more to baffle the wind and capture heat- so far no cracking. We also used it on the exterior of some windows on a horse stall with good results.

We may leave one section up in summer too because it's a solid rain shield too.

 

[Klorinth]

Pat,

I'm mainly looking at creating a more comfortable area for them. Warming the coop at night with solar is more than I think I can afford to do. My wife would not like the money that would be needed.If it was for the dogs... no limit, but chickens are not on her list of "the worthy". I will need to include heating inside the coop to increase the night temps. I have not decided to do this just yet. I will be raising Chanteclers firstly, so may not require a lot of heating. But that will depend on what I can create for them.

I had been initially looking at warming the coop itself, mostly be adding a small enclosed entry. A sort of modified version of a solar heating panel. But the more I look at it the more I think it would be more effective to actually give the girls a place to enjoy the winter sun. This may also warm the coop a bit, but is not the main intention.

I should say that the designs I am working on are not for 8' ceilings. 6' at the most. Even this last one would be 6' for the chickens, and 5' for the pigeons above.

 

[patandchickens]

Ah, ok

well, giving a cold-hardy breed like chanteclers somewhere nice to spend the day is REALLY not much of a task. Just keeping the wind and direct precipitation out of the run would be quite sufficient, possibly with straw spread on the ground for comfy feet. Most people would just wrap a roofed run with tarps or haybales and call it good

Actually if you did one of these sunporch designs of yours I think you'd need to be careful to AVOID excess solar heating, because it is not going to be healthy for birds to be experiencing like +15 C during the day and -25 C at night. So you might want to deliberately move AWAY from a greenhouse model, unless you have specific plans for what to do with the heat gain. Either 1) you could use the warmth of the sunporch as a mechanism to ventilate your coop more with warmed air -- tho that might require a fan, meaning an agricultural-type fan, and you'd have to find a unit that would operate at low enough cfpm not to suck your chickens out of the coop with the air <g> --

or, 2) what I might try is to make a heavy heat-storing wall separating the sunporch from the coop, to keep temps lower during the day and release heat into the coop at night. This would be particularly more effective if you could put an insulating cover on the outside side of that shared wall before sunset, so that the wall's stored heat was primarily going to the coop not lost to the sunporch. And heavily insulate the other walls, and the ceiling, of the coop, of course.

Have fun,

Pat

 

[Klorinth]

Pat,

I always have fun with these kinds of things... I design houses for fun in my spare time!

I was waiting for you to say both #1+2...

1) I was thinking of simply using natural convection to pull the heat from the front "sun porch" into the coop and out. Warms the coop and ventilates. The bottom of the porch would be open to the elements allowing air to freely enter. This brings fresh air in... There would then be vents midway up the center wall. This brings the warmed air into the coop... The coop then has vents in the upper part of the back wall.

2) This can be simple (filled cinder blocks), or complicated(concrete).

I'm actually more inclined to combine the two. By using your idea of a fan system(if I have power). Warm air from the upper part of the porch can be pulled into the top of a cinder block wall. This air is then blown down through the wall to the bottom, into the coop. This air then rises again up to vents in the back wall and out. Ventilation and heating, with trombe wall heat storage. This is actually what is used for some barns here in the north. Not my idea, just my modification. I would be insulating well, no matter what i do.

Now I would not do an entire wall this way. Too expensive and far too heavy. I may be able to do a part wall though. That could be interesting. I'll load pics soon. Having issues with the scanner.

 

[vermontgal]

Klorinth, nice thread, interesting designs. Most folks who do passive solar go for the second one you showed, with the overhanging roof, vs. the slanted roof which gets too much solar gain in the summer.

Patandchickens' alternative -- removable panels on the sloped roof -- is a great solution to this problem. Thanks for the photos, Pat!! It looks like a great design, appreciate your fight with the computer to get them online!

Given how my winter situation is shaping up here -- I have one fewer car in the driveway than I had last year, hence less snow to pile up -- I think I may try building something very similar on the front of my barn for next winter. (Mine will be a winter-only solution because in the summer the same spot is my best, sunniest raised bed!)

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Yeah, the thing about that is that you end up with a compromise that is not particularly optimal for one *or* the other, and may end up with both so watered-down (as it were) that you don't get a whole lot of good out of it. As compared to a design to really "go for" one or the other.

1) I was thinking of simply using natural convection to pull the heat from the front "sun porch" into the coop and out. Warms the coop and ventilates. The bottom of the porch would be open to the elements allowing air to freely enter. This brings fresh air in... There would then be vents midway up the center wall. This brings the warmed air into the coop... The coop then has vents in the upper part of the back wall.

A couple of things to think about here: First, with vents midway up the wall, most of your warm air will just rise to the upper half of the sunporch and make it very hot up there without actually getting into the coop. Temperatures at, say, waist level will be significantly lower, and *that* is the air that would be getting into the coop. The higher on the wall the vents are (up to a point), the hotter the air you get entering the coop.

Second, what you propose requires no outdoor air movement at all, or (better) a light breeze from the sunporch side. If, in contrast, you have ANY meaningful breeze (let alone wind) from the opposite side, the breeze will move the system backwards to a considerable degree - push cold air into coop, push coop air into sunporch, sunporch then vents outdoors. (Your sunporch would of course have to have vents to outside air for your system to work for ventilation of the coop)

2) This can be simple (filled cinder blocks), or complicated(concrete).

Actually I would think that plastic 55 gal drums of water, possibly saltwater, certainly with headspace provided for expansion, might work best (certainly be easiest). It is actually perfectly ok for the water to freeze as long as it doesn't bust its containers and leak all over -- the act of freezing actually liberates *quite a lot* of heat, which is after all what you're looking for thermal mass to do at night

I'm actually more inclined to combine the two. By using your idea of a fan system(if I have power). Warm air from the upper part of the porch can be pulled into the top of a cinder block wall. This air is then blown down through the wall to the bottom, into the coop. This air then rises again up to vents in the back wall and out. Ventilation and heating, with trombe wall heat storage.

Having "the bottom of the sunporch open to the elements" (which is going to be kind of hard on the chickens, as it will mean that cold wind and precipitation are coming in right at chicken level) is going to seriously, SERIOUSLY reduce the amount of heating you get. I'd suggest having adjustible vents, possibly taking their air from a ground-buffered space, and limit the ventilation to only what is minimally required for the coop... but you will still get less heat gain (and thus less nighttime thermal benefit) than if the sunporch was essentially sealed.

Trying to have your cake and eat it too may be tricky...

Have fun,

Pat​

 

[CTChickenMom]

Klorith, I love your design

! What a great way to take advantage of the sun with that giant sloped roof! I'm going to try to design something similar. I've read that chickens lay better when they have lots of natural light. My weather isn't quite as cold as yours here in Connecticut but free heat is always good. You may want to use a role up bamboo shade over all that glass for the summer. You'd need to put a hook on the bottom to keep it from blowing in the wind. Vinyl adjustable, weatherproof blinds would work too. You could allow natural light in but still keep the sun out.

Love the plans!

 

[Klorinth]

I love this! I have almost no friends here that have any understanding of this stuff. This is what forums are for. Post a thought and have it evaluated by others with similar thoughts and knowledge. Makes the idea better... or just muddies the waters a little. Oh well. I like it anyway.

Pat,

I hate having to compromise and "go for" just one design, but you are completely right. Too much of everything can be next to nothing. Frustrating.

You're right about the venting. If the sun porch were to be "sealed", top to bottom, it would act like a greenhouse and collect heat. But, if you placed vents at the top into the coop and had an equal number on the bottom out of the coop, you would create a good convection current between the two spaces. You should be able to have a good amount of airflow between the two...

Your only issue would then be air exchange, inside to out. Hmmm... Would a single vent in the coop and an open "hen door" in the sun porch be enough? Should the coop vent only be partway up the wall or up high? Or is on the floor better? I wasn't actually thinking about having the entire bottom of the sun porch open, just a small spot. A door or two.

I had forgotten about solid state heat storage. Liquid when warm, solid when cold. Much larger heat storage and release. The salt based systems are expensive from what I have read, but your idea may work. Would it be a basic salt solution or would you need to supersaturate it? And if you supersaturated the solution would the salt precipitate out. From what I remember doing salinity/precipitation experiments, this is what would happen. It may not be an issue though as long as you were able to have a container that can handle the freeze thaw cycle.

I'm curious about what you are thinking with "ground-buffered space". Are you talking about tempering the incoming air? How? Any significant tempering of the air would require an "earth tube ventilation" system made of a lot of pipe. Too much for even me to imagine doing here. For my own house I would do it, but not the chickens. LOL My wife would shoot me!

Any incoming fresh air is going to reduce the amount of available heat, but that is a necessary loss. Stale air could be worse than cold air in the long run. In my wife's lab she has to maintain an air exchange rate of 12 per hour. That is three times the normal for people. That is the minimum to meet animal care standards. I would never attempt to do that, but I do want to keep the air as clean as possible.

Ok that is enough for tonight for me. I feel like I'm back on the GreenBuildingTalk forum. It's a lot of building contractors and enthusiasts. lol I do like it though.

Thanks for the critique everyone.

 

[slaghunter]

Hi,
Looks like you have some great ideas. Just a couple of suggestions for your design. Why couldn't you use some cheap (even used) double hung windows for your solar panels? They would have to be clear glass - no low E some cheap used single pane windows would probably give you the most heat gain in the winter. You could regulate summer temperatures by simply opening the windows or even making "shudders" opening and closing shudders would be much easier than a hinged wall.

You could maximize your heat gain by using bricks or other masonry product on the wall directly behind the solar panels to act as a heat sink.

If you really wanted to get fancy you could put radiant heat in the floor. Using the sun in a home made solar water heater, some plastic drums for collection tanks, a very low flow water pump and a few hundred feet of pex pipe or even black water supply pipe. You are correct that the system would need to be sealed well but if you think about it aren't all the pipes in the plumbing in your house "sealed well"?

Sound like you have a fun project ahead of you. I am getting my first chicks in Feb and need to start my coup soon. Mine will be much simpler though we have a fairly moderate climate in VA.

Best of luck

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Sure, and that's basically what I do with my lean-to plastic-covered run, this time of year. However, adding ventilation from the outside (which as you say, you pretty much need) to the setup makes things much more complicated, and less straightforward in how it behaves.

Would a single vent in the coop and an open "hen door" in the sun porch be enough? Should the coop vent only be partway up the wall or up high? Or is on the floor better?

Generally you want to avoid cold drafts on the chickens. Chickens generally being at floor level, this means that in a normal coop, ALL vents for wintertime use are normally placed at the tops of the walls (usually protected by roof overhangs). This keeps drafts away from chickens, and also probably has some advantage in terms of creating a 'clear shot' thru the coop so that you get an upper-level straight-through airflow flushing the warm ceiling air out the other side of the coop. Which is actually what you *want*, normally, b/c the warm (and thus risen) air is carrying a lot more humidity and so getting rid of *it* purges more moisture from the coop than if it were the cold floor-level air that was exiting.

Except that putting a hole high in the sunporch's outer wall is going to let all your sunporch heat go out thataway instead of doing what you want it to do.

I wonder whether you might actually be better off leaving the sunporch sealed, and putting conventional top-of-all-other-3-walls vents in the coop. So that the introduction of fresh air occurs in the coop (which is where you need it most anyhow) and the sunporch is more of a recirculating system to warm the coop air. Except that I would worry about high-up breezes thru the coop tending to pump your sunporch air backwards (breeze flows thru the high port to sunporch...) which would probably considerably reduce its value as a heater.

I really don't know for sure, but I do know it gets complicated when you try to combine things and when you factor in air being pushed in/out by the wind. Very inconvenient, the real world

Would it be a basic salt solution or would you need to supersaturate it? And if you supersaturated the solution would the salt precipitate out.

Honestly, the phrase that comes to mind here is "it's a chicken coop" <vbg> I am not sure it MATTERS, especially if a major design consideration is to not spend much money. You do your best, and it performs however it performs

I'm curious about what you are thinking with "ground-buffered space". Are you talking about tempering the incoming air? How? Any significant tempering of the air would require an "earth tube ventilation" system made of a lot of pipe. Too much for even me to imagine doing here.

I dunno, black plastic drainage pipe is pretty inexpensive, the corrugated stuff that's like 4-5" diameter. You wouldn't have to bury it, just run it on the ground, ideally along the outer walls of the coop, and make sure it stays well covered with snow. (Or straw, or shavings, or whatever). I have a stretch of that drainage pipe coming out of my horse barn -- at one point, a sump hose ran thru it, doesn't now -- that I normally keep closed up in a basically-futile effort to reduce mouse colonization of the barn, but when I've had it open I've noticed that the air in it seems noticeably warmer than normal outdoor air. This is like a, I dunno, 20-30' section of pipe, just lying on the ground with weeds flopped atop it.

I don't have to seriously ventilate my chicken building very much at present (she says sheepishly, despite the Big Ol' Ventilation Page, link in my .sig

) because it is 15x40 (with slab floor and 6" insulated walls) and contains only 14 chickens and I clean the droppings-boards daily. (One lesson being, the bigger your coop, the less ventilation you can get away with). But if I ever did need heavy-duty ventilation, I would probably try to find a very small ag-type fan and run air out of the attic into the coop. It's your basic 'workshop' type building, with an insulated ceiling and shallow truss-filled attic and metal roof, and it gets fairly warm up there during sunny days even in winter.

Since you are pretty 'into' this, what about just building a FLEXIBLE structure? Make sure you have sufficient foundation laid for a wall o' water barrels or masonry or whatever; put a lot of closeable adjustible vents in all sorts of different places (anything you decide you're not going to use long-term can be caulked shut or even insulated); and then you can fool around with different ways of operating it til you decide what works best for you. It would really not be very much at ALL more difficult to build this way than for a predetermined management scheme. And not only would you be more likely to hit on a fairly-optimal solution, you would have fun too

Just a thought,

Pat​