Reinforce hoop run?

[aart]

It occurs to me that heavy-duty plastic tarps might do well here. Considering the pitch, snow should slide right off.

You would think so...and sometimes it does work.
But have seen it not work too, even with much sturdier support for tarps.
First hand experience with a tarped 8' wide cattle panel hoop.
May still have to use roof rake and/or bump from below.

 

[kwhites634]

You would think so...and sometimes it does work.
But have seen it not work too, even with much sturdier support for tarps.
First hand experience with a tarped 8' wide cattle panel hoop.
May still have to use roof rake and/or bump from below.

I assume you had to use 2 panels end to end to get 8' of width & have headroom. How'd you tie them together & maintain the hoop shape?

 

[aart]

I assume you had to use 2 panels end to end to get 8' of width & have headroom. How'd you tie them together & maintain the hoop shape?

No, typical 16' long panel makes a hoop 8' wide and about 5'-8" high ....I'm 5-4.
7' wide will give you a 6' height.
Here it is showing some snow load,
it's not fully built(no HC or cross support) and these are cattle panels,
(not as stiff as the hog panels used here)
you can see it bowing a bit inside,
it has to be cleared several times over the winters here.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

No, typical 16' long panel makes a hoop 8' wide and about 5'-8" high ....I'm 5-4.
7' wide will give you a 6' height.
Here it is showing some snow load,
it's not fully built(no HC or cross support) and these are cattle panels,
(not as stiff as the hog panels used here)
you can see it bowing a bit inside,
it has to be cleared several times over the winters here.
View attachment 1608575

Nice! I’m working on a small bachelor coop and planned on a cattle panel run to attach. At least the height will be low enough for me to easily scrape snow off!

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

You would think so...and sometimes it does work.
But have seen it not work too, even with much sturdier support for tarps.
First hand experience with a tarped 8' wide cattle panel hoop.
May still have to use roof rake and/or bump from below.

I’ve been perusing hoop greenhouse sites and forums. They put plastic on top but the snow doesn’t reliably slide off so there are a lot of hoop greenhouse collapses. Gothic style arches are supposed to be a lot better for snow, but I wasn’t thinking enough of winter during last summer! And, we had only had an inch of snow during our last winter...

 

[kwhites634]

I’ve been perusing hoop greenhouse sites and forums. They put plastic on top but the snow doesn’t reliably slide off so there are a lot of hoop greenhouse collapses. Gothic style arches are supposed to be a lot better for snow, but I wasn’t thinking enough of winter during last summer! And, we had only had an inch of snow during our last winter...

I built a small hoop greenhouse this year; small to see how DW likes off-season gardening. I used corrugated clear plastic panels on the outside. We'll see how well it does with snow load.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

You'd need 4-way connectors, not T's, to add a 'ridge pole' per se.
T's might work for poles to the ground,
or just pieces of lumber to support the arches vertically.
That pipe looks big...2-3"?.....more like 'flexible' irrigation pipe?
Can't think of a quick solution, just keep knocking stuff off with the rake/broom.

What about a 2x4 or 2x6 ridge, attached on the ends with joist hangers? Biggest problem with the ridge is that I don’t know that I can run anything to the ground to support the center of the ridge, since the coop or ramps would be in the way. I could possible run something down to rest on the roof of the coop...

 

[lcwmt]

What about a 2x4 or 2x6 ridge, attached on the ends with joist hangers? Biggest problem with the ridge is that I don’t know that I can run anything to the ground to support the center of the ridge, since the coop or ramps would be in the way. I could possible run something down to rest on the roof of the coop...

Our hoop run is not as large but we used a piece of conduit at the ridge line. It is mounted to the wood framing at each narrow end and supports the poly pipe quite well.

 

[aart]

What about a 2x4 or 2x6 ridge, attached on the ends with joist hangers? Biggest problem with the ridge is that I don’t know that I can run anything to the ground to support the center of the ridge, since the coop or ramps would be in the way. I could possible run something down to rest on the roof of the coop...

32' would be one heck of a long ridge beam...but if you could support it off the coop roof and at the ends should work fine.
Would be a bear to build and install.....thinking, how to? ...how long is coop?

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

32' would be one heck of a long ridge beam...but if you could support it off the coop roof and at the ends should work fine.
Would be a bear to build and install.....thinking, how to? ...how long is coop?

Yah, any option that I can think of will be a bear... Run is 32 feet long, 14 feet wide. Coop is 16 feet long and 8 feet wide and centered in run, so there are about 8 feet of run space at each end of the coop, but there is a ramp at each end also that takes up much of that space.