Roof pitch on chicken coop...

[Britcheflee]

OK, have to admit that I am NOT one of those guys who does well with construction - I can fix engines, tile, pretty much fix anything mechanical but when it comes to lumber I am awful - I cant cut two bits of wood the same length...so, please go easy on me!

I am constructing a new chicken coop. I have the floor and sills laid out i am going with 4x8 base and put up one side (frame only with 2x4s) of the coop 8ft tall by 8ft wide...now I am going to put up the opposite frame side but.....if one wall is 8ft tall what should I make the other side to have a sensible pitch on the roof? (This is not a gable construction roof just slopes down one way) - is 7ft too tall? 6 ft seems to produce a really steep roof pitch...



Lee

 

[tjweaver84]

7 should be good but if you live somewhere with heavy snow you may need to go with slightly steeper

 

[jbowen9]

what are you putting on the roof tin or shingles or something else if it is going to be tin that will be enough but shingles i would get it as steep as i could stand but dont forget your dripedge if your doing shingles

 

[Britcheflee]

Quote:
Thank you - well, my father in law has pictures of snow 5ft deep in old home movies from about 40 years ago but the most I have ever seen here in 18 years is about 2-3 ft at most.....I am going to put on a metal roof so hopefully any snow will slide right off.

Lee

 

[tjweaver84]

With that amount of snow I would probably go with 6 or 6.5 feet then just to help it slide off easier.

 

[patandchickens]

8 feet is *awfully* tall, especially for such a small (4x8) footprint on your coop -- it is going to be quite unstable in the wind, and honestly unless you have some special thing in mind there is *generally* no practical use in building it so very tall. I would suggest lopping a foot or three off of it.

For roofing a 4x8 building in an area where snow can be 2-4+ feet deep, with a metal roof, you can probably get away with a lower pitch than if it were a larger structure (larger area) but I would still not go lower than 1/4 (3/12) at the flattest. If you are sloping this across the short dimension of the coop, that would mean having at least a 1' difference in the heights of the two walls in question; if for some reason you are sloping across the long dimension of the coop, the two walls in question (the narrower ones, in this case) would have to have at least a 2' difference in height.

Mind you, you CAN have a flatter roof, but then you will need thicker rafters and more of them (closer together); or you can underbuild and "hope", but I really do not advocate that approach

Seriously though, think about making the coop no higher than 6-7' at its tallest; and even then, anchor it well.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[33yardbirds]

Dropping from 8' to 6' on an 8 ' run would give you 3" of drop per foot run of rafter, which isn't steep at all. On the 4x8 it still works out 6" of drop per foot run of rafter. On the 6 pitch you can use 3 tab shingles. the 3" rolled roofing or some type of corigated, tin, PVC, or fiberglass. Manufactures recomend that you don't use shingles on anything less than a 4/12 pitch.

 

[surfchicken72]

I built mine at 6 1/2 in the back to 5' in the front.... spanning the SHORT distance... I'm in New England so we get some good snow here...
I haven't gone thru my first winter yet, but looking at it, it seem plenty steep enough.. see my BYC page for pics...

 

[GVag]

Quote:

Thank you - well, my father in law has pictures of snow 5ft deep in old home movies from about 40 years ago but the most I have ever seen here in 18 years is about 2-3 ft at most.....I am going to put on a metal roof so hopefully any snow will slide right off.

Lee

Before it snows spray the metal roof with non stick cooking spray and the snow will slide off, works on satellite dishes also.