The Club Sandwich: Rotem's Blog

Inlets, the subject of this blog, are a fascinating subject.  Inlets lack the power, size and ability to ventilate found in fans, they may only open a few inches, yet they are critical to proper poultry house management.  Simply put, using inlets enables simple ventilation along with significant reductions in fuel costs associated with running fans.  In this world of ever rising fuel costs, you can’t ask for more than that!  The professional literature states that proper air mixing can save up to 25% in fuel costs.  As an added bonus, your birds will be much healthier. Continue reading →

Fans

Fans are the equipment used to exchange stale air or reduce temperatures in a poultry house.  If you are using a negative pressure system in your house, the fans exhaust (blow out) the air and clean air enters via the openings (more on openings in our next blog).

Levels of Ventilation (Staging)

Birds require different amounts of air depending their age, temperature, and air quality.  The required quantities can change during a normal day as the temperature rises and falls.  Therefore you need to vary the amount of air provided accordingly.  This is called ventilation levels (staging).  Minimum level is defined as that amount of air needed during winter (to ensure air quality only).

When configuring the fans’ levels, keep the following in mind:

• Number of required fans
• Temperature set points
• The quantity of air required at a stage

Two types of fans can be installed:

• Single speed
• Variable speed

Variable speed fans have several advantages over single speed fans. They supply a continuous variation in the rates, reduce temperature swings, and reduce energy costs.  At low speeds (if you are using TRIAC speed control) variable speed fans have a glaring disadvantage; namely when operating at low speeds, they can’t block wind-induced back-pressure.  However for every problem there is a solution:  controlling speed with an inverter overcomes this issue.

For more information on fans, have a look at this article.

Power Ventilation

Up until now our discussion has been about what is involved when using natural ventilation. The alternative is power ventilation, meaning using fans, air inlets, and various types of controls and controllers to control the temperature, airflow, and air content (humidity level, gas levels, etc).  Using these mechanisms enables taking direct control over the ventilation process, making you independent of the whims of weather.  Given the critical importance in providing your birds with clean air at the right temperature, power ventilation is often a necessity, not a luxury. Continue reading →

Our last blog entry discussed methods of using natural ventilation. In that post, I touched upon a subject that needs some fleshing out – namely that warm air rises.  In technical terns, this is called “Thermal Buoyancy Generated Ventilation”. Continue reading →

Providing proper ventilation to your birds is done by exploiting natural air flow and using mechanical systems when needed.  This post deals with natural ventilation.

Natural ventilation is just that – using the natural air flow to exchange the air found in the poultry house.  Given that natural ventilation costs little or nothing to run, this can be an ideal method PROVIDED that the birds get sufficient air.  So how do you do that? Continue reading →