Proof Coop Insulation Does Nothing.

[Chickens-246]

Ridgerunner, Good points and your on track, but there is too much negativity on this thread for me to bother with more thermal camera data. A fiberglass batt wall needs to be air tight to be effective, otherwise it's just an air filter. Materials loose their heat fairly quickly. I can see the 2x4's facing West in my house turn 'colder' (from inside the house) in about 30 minutes after sunset (53° ambient). The insulation turns 'colder' before this. I don't see how anyone can can claim coop walls emit heat all night. It may do something for 20-30 minutes.

I could see some peoples point on "only a spot" if I hung fiberglass batt over an area. Styrofoam is closed cell and ready to go as is. It's not subject to air penetration like open cell fiberglass batts, that need to be sealed to work. You can see the outline of the styrofoam piece, so it's doing "job". There is no difference between a piece or a whole wall.

Pat, It's obvious there is nothing that could ever change your mind, it's not worth my effort to try. I'm not going to debate this with you, I find your opinion/theories "deeply flawed", as you put it.

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Quote:
It is a good thing I was not drinking coffee when I read this (or maybe I should have drunk more coffee *before* I read it), because somehow that is not the *kind* of vent, vis-a-vis chickens, that I was thinking of when I read it. "Oh, owww, poor chicken!" LOL

Pat, who clearly needs to slow down and read more carefully

OMG! LOL I wonder who's going to volunteer for that duty? LOL

 

[patandchickens]

On the contrary, people not-infrequently change my mind.

Only with good and relevant evidence, though. Not "I have a fruit and it's not round, so round things must not be fruits" type arguments.

Other readers of this thread should bear in mind that the issue of ventilation/insulation is not a new or mysterious thing. It has been worked out LONG since [like, by your grandfathers and on back], and is easily demonstrated for yourself if you are of an inquiring type of mind

Yes, there is an amount of air exchange *beyond which* insulation is pointless (what it is, for any particular coop, depends on a lot of variables, and especially on the nature of your interior heat 'pool'), but most backyard coops operate well BELOW that threshold, hence insulation does make a useful difference.

Enjoy,

Pat

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

We are usually below freezing (at least every night) Halloween through mid-April or sometimes into May. There are months at a time (December through February) that we dip below 0F and get nasty windstorms along with it.

There are some chickens I have that have never had any issues with frostbite or death from the cold. Then, there are others like my Creves & Houdans that will sit outside in the snow until they are soaked to the bone, shivering and huddled in the corners. Then it gets dark and they are "stuck" outside. So I had to go out and fling them back into the coop and then go around and put them on their roosts with lights. It's a wonder they are not extinct, yet! LOL

That said, some of my rarer breeds (Houdan & Creve in particular) are not hardy during the winter, so I'm trying to cut down on the number of crested as well as single combed breeds (I will have my Sussex & Golden Laced this winter) to concentrate on pea or walnut combs a little more...along with breeding for hardiness within some of the others breeds.

So breed hardiness and bird condition have a lot to do with them surviving and thriving during the winter...

Oh and last winter I was able to score 1,000+ lbs of wheat which I fed a long with their regular feed and some whole corn when it got really cold and they did very well on it.

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Quote:
I have some vents on my coop and an open ridge on the south side (under the overhang of my roof) which is also a long vent. During the winter months, that one I stuff with insulation wrapped in plastic but the two big vents (east & west ends of the coop) stay open year round. The ONLY time I shut one last winter was overnight during a windstorm when the temps dipped to -10 or more. My 8 x 16' coop has 6 chicken sized "pop holes" so the sides are like Swiss cheese.

I have two at end short end of my coop and two a long the long side of the coop which also provide a little air movement. The way my coop is designed, I can leave the main coop door open in the summer without worrying about losing birds so that helps to move some air around too. I was surprised last winter that it didn't get dusty in there at all...if I could do it over, I would have made a few more vents up top and switched my bantam pens around a little more...the way that they are positioned along the highest (Northern) wall/ceiling makes the potential for them catching drafts higher. I did add some OSB to the sides of their pens during the winter for that reason, as little wind-breaks for them. This last winter was the first since I started keeping chickens that I didn't lose any due to freezing temps.

Oh and the humidity hasn't been an issue, yet. When we get that bitter cold and blowing wind, we will drop down to below 20% outside and it wasn't much higher in the coop until I closed it up--and even then it got to 45% which wasn't enough to cause problems. And yes, the humidity gauge is IN the coop, NOT through the VENT! LOL

I've just learned that the best I can do is to just watch my chickens and go from there!

 

[Chickens-246]

Quote:
They didn't have advance technologies like thermal imagers to show them if it's actually working.

It's time to embrace technologies available today. 'This is the way it's always been done' doesn't mean it's correct or worthwhile.

With a thermal imager I can find things like roof, wall, window water leaks. Plumbing water leaks, inside ceilings, walls and floors. Plugged piping. Air leaks in windows, doors etc. Find missing/settled/improperly installed insulation inside walls, ceilings and floors, air leaks in the same. Find mechanical and power distribution issues before failure. Etc, etc. All without taking any of these apart and in seconds.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
They didn't have advance technologies like thermal imagers to show them if it's actually working.

It's time to embrace technologies available today. 'This is the way it's always been done' doesn't mean it's correct or worthwhile.

Well, yay for thermal imaging. It is certainly great for some things, like finding spots in a house that have been missed with insulation or have air (or water) leaks.

HOWEVER it does not tell you what you are wanting it to tell you HERE.

"Does insulation keep a ventilated coop any warmer" requires you to insulate a coop and see if that keeps it warmer (while maintaining ventilation, and comparing to a coop of same construction and venting but without insulation installed).

Not stick a square of styrofoam to the wall and see if the outside wall temp is different. That tells you something about something, but not what you are wanting to know about the situation you're wanting to know it about. "Poor experimental design", we would say in the scientific-research biz.

Just because you have a shiny new hammer does not mean everything is suddenly a nail

Anyhow, it's unnecessary (although certainly always fun to play around with new technology). Our grandfathers, and the housing industry until maybe 15-20 years ago, did not need thermal imaging cameras when they had what us ignorant old-timers like to call THERMOMETERS and EXPERIENCE. Like, if you live in a house for X years and then one year someone convinces you to insulate it and hey wow from then on it is a lot warmer and you don't have to use as much fuel for the furnace... how much more practical can your evidence BE?

Pat

 

[MomMommyMamma]

LOVE the chicken pic. Staying out of the rest of it - don't want to showcase my lack of knowledge lol.

 

[Mahonri]

Since I have an AC unit in my coop, I think I should really do the fiberglass insulation thing...

 

[haTHOR]

i spent eight years and a ton of time studying and learning (and then teaching undergrads) about good research design and using the numbers that come out of experiments, and i have to say, with absolutely no negativity, that this experiment does not prove (or measure) what your subject line claims. before you get your feathers ruffled

, do a controlled experiment as suggested and by all means, use your heat gun as well as other verifiable instruments/measures, and absolutely share your conclusions. unfortunately the data gathered thus far cannot be said to empirically reflect your conclusion, exciting new technology or not.

science and the work of observing, hypothesizing, experimenting does not end with one sub-conclusion. it seeks to further knowledge at every turn, and requires that scientists be willing to hear the suggestions of others working in the field, and an ability to re-adjust, re-assess, and re-test one's preliminary conclusions, until sufficient data and evidence has been gathered such that one's final conclusions are irrefutable, or nearly so. that requires listening and learning all the time.

it would be neat to see the data that CAN be gathered with your thermal imaging device used in a more comprehensive evaluation of the value of insulation, however!