Repecka Illustrates Coop Ventilation

I wanted to clarify the following diagram to ensure consistency with Woods' book.


As I understand the philosophy of Woods' design the purpose of both the depth vs width of the coop & size ratio of front vs back sections coupled with closing of monitor and side windows during winter is to create an "air cushion" in the back section. The result is that incoming air does not enter the back section rather is reflected back along the top of the front section to exit through the front. In doing so it also extracts the humidity created by waste and breathing of birds on the roosts located at the back of the coop.

The diagram, as currently shown, indicates incoming cold air passing underneath the roosts and rising thus creating drafts on the birds. This is what one needs to avoid in designing a well ventilated coop. In addition, if one uses drop boards it would block air flow as depicted in the diagram.

The diagram should be modified to "show" the air cushion with the flow arrows moved forward to illustrate the air curling back at the monitor window location.

There are a number of comments in posts herein describing how this works where a candle or light length of paper is held in the back section to test whether there is any movement; these posts state that no movement is evident.

This is taken from page 80 of Prince Woods' book "Modern Fresh Air Poultry Houses" 1924 Edition:

Lovely job illustrating coop ventilation by Repecka, who sure knows what she's talking about.

Thank you. You answered all of my questions and some I didn’t even know I had.

Great info for some people and I love the sense of humor used

Repecka!!!! That’s uniquely amazing and great job!!! You made a seemingly daunting task much easier and more fun to think about!! Our feathered family is doing great in our “up and down” Wisconsin weather!!

The drawings are awesome. It makes me feel better about our ventilation. We have a shed roof on ours with vents on the low side facing north which is shady with trees, the high area is to the south. We have soffit vents on the south side and also top hinged windows. This is where our mostly covered run is. We also have hanging fans in front of the north facing vents to pull the cooler air on and upwards through the exit vents. When we had 105 days this summer with no wind it was very hard for the chickens but we helped mitigate this in different ways and everyone survived, I do know there were people here in NE who lost many.

Great visuals - much appreciated!!!

Clear, concise, links to coop designs for different climates.

Very nicely done! Super easy to understand and enjoy!

Thank you so much for doing this. We are all better off!

I love that your illustrations are able to show movement and airflow! Well drawn, entertaining, and very informative.

The illustrations are ridiculous AND helpful!

This is one of the most informative and entertaining articles to date, IMHO.
Very well done.

Perfect description on how to create good venting!! LOVE the drawings!

Thanks for the illustrated article. So relevant, and useful for us newbies. Shared with hubby who will fix pronto. Luckily our temps are moderate.

Incredibly creative and fun article to liven up the important topic of ventilation education. A must-read for every chicken owner!
Clearly, a skirted chicken is the obvious choice for presenting unbiased and factual information!

This is a great explanation of how to provide ventilation without drafts.

What a great article. In particular I appreciated the diagrams. It gave me food for thought for an open coop building project.

Very clear, very helpful. The charming drawings make it easy to visualize the information.

Even a child could read and understand this article. Great illustrations and information