In this article, we will take a closer look at using electrical heating inside your chicken house. If you are among the people who despite their desperate tries, can’t manage to heat up their chicken coop using passive methods, it might be a good idea to install some kind of electric heating device. But you have to be certain that you need it, any kind of artificial source of heat can be dangerous in an environment like your chicken coop.
What device should you use?
If you will look around, you will find many devices that are designed to heat up your chicken coop. However, we will take a look at the most popular ones like heat lamps, ceramic heat emitters and oil-filled electric radiators. These are the three devices you should be considering while trying to increase the temperature inside your chicken house.
Heat lamps
Heat lamps are by far the most popular way to make your chicken house plan warmer. However, they are also the most dangerous solution from the three I’ve mentioned above. The immense heat they produce will warm your chicken house fast but, in case of a failure or if the lamp falls down onto the coops’ bedding, it will most likely cause a fire. Considering the small size of most chicken houses, your flock has no chances of survival in such a case…
It is important to take every precaution you can. Keep the heat lamp at least 18″ from any combustible materials. You should also screw the lamp in two points(like ceiling and a nearby wall). This will insure it remains in safe distance from the bedding, even if one screw fails.
Ceramic heat emitters
This kind of heating devices have a very similar shape to light bulbs, but they do not emit any kind of light. They get very hot so it is important to separate them from your chickens. They also have a flow, because the heat they produce fails to radiate on greater lengths. This means they give heat but only at short distances, so if you have bigger coop it might not be a good idea to invest in them.
Oil-filled electric radiators
This is the last method of heating the chicken house plan, and it is by far the safest one. The biggest advantage of electric radiators is the fact, they don’t emit very high temperatures so the risk of your chickens getting burned is minimal. However, they cost much more than the other two solutions so if you are on a budget this may not be for you.
What to avoid
The biggest no-no are all kinds of air blowing heating machines. You have to remember that there is a lot of dust inside your chicken house so you face the risk of the heating device getting clogged up. This, on the other hand creates a risk of fire.
Some safety tips
The most important safety measure is protecting your chickens from intensive heat these devices produce. Another thing you should remember is hiding all the wires from your chickens. Chickens are very curious animals, and they like to peck on things. Therefore, if they choose to “try-out” a wire, they will most likely get electrocuted and die. Furthermore, avoid using extension cords inside your chicken house, they often get overheated and may be a fire threat.
I do believe it is all you need to know about installing heating inside the chicken house. If for some reason, you still have some questions about this topic, feel free to post a comment. I will try to answer it to the best of my abilities.
This article is a continuation of the previous one about insulating your chicken house. This time we will focus on thermal mass of your chicken house plan, heat inertia and other useful things. I will show you how to make your chicken house plan warmer in the winter and colder in the summer.
What is a chicken house thermal mass and why do you need it?
Term “thermal mass” refers to the ability of a certain material or structure to absorb and then release heat. This principle is best shown on the example of a beach. When you were small, you probably noticed that when it is hot, the sand on the beach got hotter much faster than the water in the sea. However, after the sunset, when the temperature got lower, the sand got colder very fast, while the water stayed warm long after the sun disappeared.
This happened because water has higher thermal mass than the sand. In plain words, sand absorbs heat faster but also releases it much, much quicker than the water. How can you utilize this rule in your chicken house plan? Simple, you should include more elements that have high thermal mass inside of your coop, and it will remain warmer during the night.
Try to incorporate things like: stone, concrete, earthen floor, barrels of water, etc. This will insure your coop doesn’t lose the temperature too fast. If winters in your area are extremely cold, you may think about heating the water manually and then placing it inside your coop. However, it is important not to place hot containers in a place where your chickens have easy access, or they may get burned.
Side effects of too high thermal mass
While large thermal mass is a great way to warm your chicken house up, in the summer, it can be a problem. Just as in winter, things like stones and concrete will give away a lot of heat in the night, exposing your chickens to a very high average temperature throughout the day.
However, there is a method to fight this. When the thermometer is showing extremely high temperatures, you can put some stones into the freezer during the night and then place them inside your chicken house to make the day more comfortable for your chickens.
The size of your chicken house plan and temperature
If you have read some of my other posts, you know that I stress the importance of the proper chicken house plan size in almost everyone of them. However, how does the size affect the temperature of the chicken house plan? In every space, we face a phenomenon of heat inertia. It is obvious that, the larger the space the more air in it. This in return means that in order to change the temperature of a big chicken house, you require a larger amount of cold air than you would need with a small coop. However, you also need more energy to heat it up.
As with everything in nature there is a balance, but, building a large chicken house plan seems more logical than a small one. Yes the small one will be easier to heat, but will also lose its temperature way faster. Of course it is your decision as to how big your chicken house should be but, my recommendation is to choose the bigger size.
It is all, this and the previous article is everything you need to know about passive heating your chicken houses. In the next article, I will discuss the active methods to heat a chicken house. I will also try to combine all the methods to make your chicken house plan warmer and give you specific solutions to many of the problems you may encounter.
In this post, I will introduce you to methods that will allow you to create a much warmer chicken house plan. This specific article will be devoted to insulation, what it is, how it affects temperature of your coop and when you should use it.
Are you sure your chicken house plan requires more warmth?
Before you begin to modify plan of your chicken house, let’s discuss some important figures. The most important question you should ask yourself before you start to increase the indoor temperature of your chicken house is, What climate do you live in? Is it cold frequently? Do the weather conditions change often? What are the maximal and minimal temperatures you experience throughout the year?
If you are living in a climate that is moderately cold or warm all yearlong, you probably don’t have to worry about temperatures. The thing that many people do not realize is the fact that chickens themselves produce about 10 watts of heat each. Therefore, if you own 10 hens, it’s like having a 100W light bulb on at all times. What does it mean? It means that, unless you experience really low temperatures, your chickens will be able to heat their chicken house all by themselves.
How is your chicken house losing heat?
There are two ways your chicken house plan may be losing heat. First one is by air exchange. It is obvious that if the air inside your coop is warmer than the air outside, the exchange of the two will cause the temperature inside your chicken house to drop. The thing you should look out for are drafts. If outdoor temperature is 32 degrees Fahrenheit(thermometer unaffected by winds), but the thermometer that is exposed to winds shows 14 degrees Fahrenheit, inside of your coop shouldn’t be lower than 32 F. Why? Because if there are no drafts inside your chicken house, it should have a temperature of still air.
The second way your chicken house can be losing temperature is, radiant heat loss. That is the kind of loss that insulation is supposed to prevent. It is easiest to explain using the example of a cup filled with hot tea. At first your tea is hot, then left for a while, the cup becomes hot but, the tea is getting colder. Leave them for even more time, and you will notice that the surface the cup stands on is, hotter than it used to be and the tea is colder than in the beginning. In short tea(your chicken house) looses its’ temperature in favor of objects in its’ environment.
The physics of chicken house insulation
In the following paragraphs, I will try to explain to you the importance of proper insulation. Many people have false assumptions about how the insulations works. Despite what you may think, insulating your coop doesn’t make it warmer or colder. I understand it may sound weird but, let me elaborate on this issue.
The main purpose of insulation is to protect whatever space is insulated from the outside temperature. In short, if your coop is warm and the outside temperature is cold, insulation protects your chicken house from losing its heat. It doesn’t as many people think, heat it up by itself. That is why, well insulated chicken house plan remains warm in the winter and cold in the summer. If you don’t believe me, grab some ice cream put them on the table and count time required for them to melt. Later grab the same portion of the same ice cream but cover them with a blanket and measure the time again. You will see that ice creams covered with a blanket “survived” longer than the ones’ left in the open.
The only issue with too much insulation is, that if in summer, your chickens will produce a lot of heat, it won’t dissipate as fast as it would without insulation. So in the end the inside of your chicken house will be warmer than it should. That is why installing an insulation should be done only if you are living in really extreme climate.
This is all the information you should know about insulating your chicken house plan to make it warm and pleasurable for your chickens. If you still don’t get some parts of this concept, read this post again, and you should understand it. See you in the next post about how to further preserve the temperature of your chicken house plan.
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