Northerners - insulating coops?

[McGoo]

Yup, insulated with 2-4 in foam and then covered with thin plywood. Works well - and maybe a little too well sometimes. Be sure to give a little ventilation if temps go up a bit. I keep an eye on mine and when I see condensation I open a vent or 2. I also open the vents during the day to air it out since our coop is quite snug.

 

[True Grit]

We insulated a 4x4 coop with 1 inch rigid foam and plywood inside and out. We only have 5 chickens and I find the humidity doesn't get very high anyway in very cold weather. If its -20 outside I can almost close it up and it doesn't get humid inside. If its humid outside and 30ish degrees, it will be humid inside and 40ish. I wish we had put in a little thicker insulation. It does work well in the summer to keep the coop a little cooler.

 

[ray2310]

We insulated our coop. We are thinking of building another coop for housing turkeys, meat birds or more egg layers. I will not be insulating it. Last winter we heated the coop. It was very smelly and had high humidity. This winter we didn't heat and the coop environment was much better. The only issue was frozen water which was fixed with a heated waterer.

 

[showme69]

Here's a thread with 70 pages of comments about insulating or not.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=421122&p=1

 

[bluebird]

We are in Valparaiso IN so, yep, we insulated. Our coop has two hanging light fixtures so when it gets into the teens I use a 150w ceramic reptile heat element in one of the light fixtures just to take the chill off. We also wrap the fenced enclosure with clear pvc tarp to block the winter winds and keep snow out.

 

[Eroc1_1]

I live in NE Ohio and I did decide to insulate my coop (duck house) walls and ceiling. We used rigid foam insulation sandwiched between 1/2" plywood. I believe it has plenty of ventilation to go with the insulation. I, however, tend to overkill on projects.

 

[gottadance]

oooh - good stuff guys - seems like there's a divide...but if I have chickens that are hardy, keep moisture down, I should be OK w/out insulation.

 

[Hucks Hickens]

We live in Eastern Washington and we have some pretty cold night so we insulated our coop with R-11 and covered with plywood. The coop is an old 1910's chicken house and the siding was not air tight. We also covered up a couple of the windows that are by the roost with plastic to help decrease any drafts. The really cold nights we turned on a heat lamp but also had a water heater that would automatically turn on if below 35 degrees. The wife worried about them so he had a thermometer that remotely we could monitor from the house and even on the ten below nights with the wind blowing it was about 30 in the chicken house.

 

[Chilton_Coop]

We are near the coast in New Jersey so our winters are not as bad as Minnesota where I grew up. That said, we did have several night when the temperature was below 10 degrees F.
I used 3/4 inch house siding insulation and sandwitched it between the outer and inner walls, floor, and roof. I also knew from Minnesota experience that a major source of heat in a coop is from the chickens inside. Our two chickens exit via a ramp in the floor of the coop. The ramp becomes a trapdoor when raised for cold nights or security. I already had AC power for the water heater in the run so attaching two small pet heating pads (switch controlled and 25 watts each) on the wall was a simple addition. I have no doubt that the coop will stay above freezing if the temperature ever reaches 0 dregrees F.

Dennis

Here's a photo link to copy and pasteickr.com/photos/nikonnut/5561596510/

 

[gottadance]

Nice! Wow! I can't believe all of you do such great building - I'm hiring someone! LOL

I forgot to mention my coop will be facing south with the ends facing west and east. The north side will be the garage side, so that will block those bitter cold winter winds. In the winter, the trees have lost their leaves, so the sun shines there, in the summer, the trees are filled in and there's some shade. I think the location is going to work out well for my region.