Farm Buildings
When designing buildings, we need to
consider all the factors. The main factor for
livestock buildings is the actual purpose of
the building. Is it for Adult Cattle, Yearlings,
Young Calves or even Sheep? Whichever
group, they will all have different needs
regarding optimum sizes and feeding
systems. There are many guide lines on
volume of air per animal, but the best form
of ventilation is and probably always will be,
natural ventilation with gaps at the eaves
and open ridges. This will undoubtedly also
be the cheapest form of ventilation you can
get, no fans using electricity, no moving
parts and thus nothing to go wrong.
In high rainfall areas, where there
is concern about open ridges, special
cappings can be applied. The best answer
is still simple, upturned flashing to make the
outside air lift over the ridge of the roof, yet
most people don’t fit the flashings correctly.
The big temptation is always to try and
close the gap up with these flashings and
consequently, the base of the upstand ends
up being further up the roof than the end of
the roof sheet. This doesn’t work and leads
to a lot more problems as rainfall hits the
insides, runs down and drips off the base
corner - and it feels as though it is raining in.
The base of any upstand should always be
at a minimum 50mm (two inches) back from
the top of the roof sheet, so that any water/
rainfall that hits the inside of the upright
flashing can then drain away. Let’s face it,
it is very rare that rainfall comes straight
down - it nearly always comes down at an
angle so then it will hit the inside of any
upturned flashing, run down to the bottom
edge and as long as that edge is back from
the top of the sheet it will run down the roof
to the gutter. If you double the volume of air
in a building then realistically you need to
double the size of the openings at the eaves
and ridge.
DESIGNED FOR YOUR LIVESTOCK
People often have one side of a building
open and think that will be fine, there
is plenty of space for the air to get out.
After buying a smoke machine for testing
buildings a few years ago, it really opened
my eyes to how ill-informed most of us are
regarding air flows. The best I saw was in an
old building in which I could barely stand up.
it had a small gap under 24/07/2017 10:06
the gutter and an open ridge. Within 30
seconds the smoke had gone completely!
Yet in a single slope open shed it took
approximately five whole minutes to go and
when it did, the smoke went out through
th