What is the easiest to clean interior wall covering?

[juliect]

I am renovating an existing storage building into a bigger, better coop and I am trying to figure out the best covering for the interior walls to make it easy to clean. I have pondered everything from painted OSB, to tileboard, to OSB covered with inexpensive linoleum.

Any suggestions?

 

[damohomesteaders]

We used FRP (fiberglass reinforced plastic) panels to cover our walls.

You will see this stuff all the time on walls in Car Washes, Restaurants (dish washing areas), public showers, etc.

It is very pliable and super easy to clean and disinfect! We found it fairly reasonable in price at a Reclamation facility. They had sheets that were "defective" .... maybe a tiny corner missing, or a crack along the edge, discolored, and so on. Like the chickens would mind!! We lined all four walls with it and sealed the seams and top and bottom edges. No water behind the panels on the wall. Just spray and wipe clean with a concentration of vinegar and water for light cleaning, or a concentration of bleach and water for disinfecting. I love it!

 

[patandchickens]

I guess the main question is, are you a hoser?

THat is to say, are you the kind of person who enjoys hosing down the inside of the coop for some reason.

If so, you want an arrangement where water isn't going to soak into the material, nor get down behind/under anything. Thus anything involving vinyl flooring is probably a bad idea. Ideal would be the plastic panels they sell for commercial barns, with hosing/disinfecting in mind; simpler, though, is plywood with a smooth surface and a good coat of semigloss exterior paint on it.

If you are not a hose-weilding maniac, any of your suggestions would be ok. I'd still go with painted plywood by preference, though. OSB is much rougher (holds more dust; also soaks up more paint when painting it!), and vinyl flooring has potential issues with sagging when used on walls, and with mites etc being able to get behind it. You could use them and probably be fine, but plywood would be my first choice.

GOod luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[StaatsFarms]

I used OSB with 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of good exterior paint... it cleans fairly easy for me... I put the paint on thicker than normal to help smooth it out a bit... I just scrape what needs it and wipe it down with a wet cloth (water/bleach combo)... it doesn't get every little speckle off but then I think "it's a chicken coop... I'm not gonna be eating off the walls"...

 

[juliect]

Quote:
I am only a hoser when the weather is hot and I am really bored

Unfortunately my bored days are few and far between lately. Now I am more of a scraper.

I didn't think of mites getting behind the vinyl...hmmm....<crosses that off the list>

Thanks

 

[possumqueen]

I've been planning to use the exterior paint idea, but not so much for ease of cleaning as to seal the interior of the coop against mites and such like critters. I'm with StaatsFarms on cleaning -- hey, it's a chicken coop, for Pete's sake!

But in my last flock I had a serious problem with scale mites, which get into the wood and become the very devil to eradicate. The new coop I plan to build will be caulked and painted to prevent that. I'm thinking of a 2x4 roost that I can replace regularly for the same reason.

Besides, the range of designer colors is just too hard to pass up!

 

[juliect]

Quote:
The FRP panels were my first choice, but then a friend warned me how expensive they are so I kind of dropped the subject. But I will definitely check the salvage yards and see what I can find.

Quote:

I started into chicken keeping with the idea that I was going to keep everything sparkling and Martha-Stewart-level clean...then reality hit....Chickens poop, everywhere and all the time and I don't have 127 employees to cleanup after them. So, I too have ceased my quest for perfection.

 

[wombat]

Ours is painted plywood. I used primer and then a high gloss paint, and it wipes down well. I like the FRP idea, though ... if I could find cheap discards like juliect mentioned.

We also calked thouroughly, no cracks for mites and critters ... but we kept the calk bead as flush as we could get it so the chickens wouldn't eat it.

 

[CityChook]

I'm externally CHEAP so I just painted the walls/floor. Nice coat of oil-based primer and 3 coats of exterior semigloss. Cost me less than $50 and a little time. When I clean out the coop (which is only twice a year), I simply spritz it down with a vinegar/water mixture, let it sit for 10 minutes and wipe everything down with dish soapy water. Let it air dry and refill with clean shavings. Clean as can be. I caulked all the corners and the base of the walls (where it meets the floor), so no water seeps between the seams. Works really well and always looks nice.

 

[DawnSuiter]

White bathroom paneling.
It also is a great dry erase board material.