Cool Room Question

[polevaultcowboy21]

Well with the weather getting hotter and hotter down here in Texas the cool room is becoming a new home for our calves. But i do have a question, We have had a company come in and spray foam insulation about 3 inches. However with that being said it is still a little warm in the room.I mean with it being 104 outside its 80 to 85 in the room and im not complaining about that at all.  It has tin on the outside of the room so im thinking that the sun is just heating the tin which in turn heats the room. I have talked some people and some have suggested venting the room from the room since heat rises, others have suggested putting plywood on the wall. What are some of yalls suggesting. This is for a school, Im the new ag teacher and trying to get the kids here set up pretty well. I have a cool room that is just the same but stays so much cooler and i have never had this problem so its a new experience for me and was just needing some ideas.  Thanks in advance

 

[shortyjock89]

When you say cool room, do you mean just insulated with fans?  I sure would vent it if its closed up from all sides. I'd also put up white tin or the white plastic sheeting like what you'd have in a wash rack. Another suggestion is to spray the outside wall of the cool room with water for a few minutes every hour in the afternoon. It seriously makes a big difference. I assume the sun hits the outside wall in full force in the afternoon?  One of the smartest things we ever did was put our room on the east side of our barn with a lean-to over the outside wall. The degree of separation from the sun really helps. Good luck, I know how brutal Texas summers can be.

 

[polevaultcowboy21]

Our room is on the east side of our barn also, but is still gets hit pretty hard. It is insulated with four turbo fans and two window ac units in it also. I have built a room before and have not had this problem so this is new to have cool room that does not stay at a cooler temperature. I dont expect the room get down in the 50's but would like low 70's on a hot day, cause I know that growing hair as just as much to do with working it and the lack of light as it does with the cold.  I had thought about doing the white tin but was not sure. The lean to on the east side sounds good, because that would help with blocking the sun when it comes up. Again Thank you for the suggestion. 

 

[vc]

I not know why you could not just paint the tin with a white paint, or try to coat it with the stuff they put on pool decks that stays cool. The more calves you put in the cooler the warmer it will get, plus fans create heat as well, you may need to add a second wall unit, to bring the temp down. Make sure the vents and everything are clean on your wall unit as well, if they get clogged the unit is not near as efficient.

 

[LLBUX]

Three inches in the walls is not very much insulation.
Three inches in the ceiling too?    Need much more up there.
White wall will be much cooler too.

I have an old Morton building that I have used in the past for calves.
Last summer I insulated it a bit with 1/2' foil faced styrofoam and put up OSB in calf pens.
Outside temp 96.    Wall temp on steel siding was 136.    Inside face of OSB was 106. 
Inside air temp was 105.

Had good air movement so my ultra-hairy Belties were not that uncomfortable.

Built a hoop barn over the winter that is making a big difference in cattle comfort.

Insulation and air movement will keep them comfortable.
Good luck!

 

[GoWyo]

How big are your air conditioners?  The guy that owns Coolbot told me that each steer will put off something like 6000 btu of body heat, so you need about 2000 btu in excess of that for each steer.  For example, if you have 5 steers in a cooler putting off 30,000 btu of body heat, you will probably need at least 40,000 btu of cooling capacity, which would require a couple of 24,000 btu air conditioner units.

We only run 2 steers in our home built cooler with an 18,000 btu a/c unit.  Without a Coolbot, it will keep it about 65 deg. on a 90-95 deg. day and with the Coolbot can keep it in the mid-50s on the regular setting.  If we use the more aggressive program on the Coolbot, there is the potential to frost up the a/c unit.

 

[mocharolais]

3" in the walls is good for spray foam.  What type of barn is it?  Pole barn, steel, 2x4 framed?

Ceiling needs more insulation.

 

[polevaultcowboy21]

We Have two 18,000 BTU AC Units. It is a pole barn. It was a project for my ag kids to build and did a great job, they built the room them selves ran the eletical and everything, I had an eletrician come out and help with that, so that it was to code. We had a company out of lubbock come and spray the foam for us and was very generous. The calves seem very comfortable was just wondering if there was any thing more we could do to help drop the temp a little more. I had not thought about compensating for how much heat the calves put off, sometimes when you are so close to it you don't see everything for how it is. Thank you to everyone and keep the ideas coming if there are any this has really helped alot thank ya'll

 

[mocharolais]

How big of area are you actually trying to cool?

 

[sizzler14]

I have pretty much the same set up and had the same problems. I built a shell around it. Meaning i built sides and put a roof on it and let the sun beat off of the outside shell, not the cooler itself. I put around a 6 inch gap from the cooler to the shell so it didnt make it sweat etc. I would also advise you to buy the cool collars from Sullivans. We put them on during mid day around 10am and taken them off around 4pm during the hot time of day. with the calf being in a.c and infront of fans the cool collars help keep their body temp down and hair growing. We take them off at 4, hose them off then stick them in our freezer to the next morning. Hope this helps. Good luck!

 

[jason]

I have pretty much the same set up and had the same problems. I built a shell around it. Meaning i built sides and put a roof on it and let the sun beat off of the outside shell, not the cooler itself. I put around a 6 inch gap from the cooler to the shell so it didnt make it sweat etc. I would also advise you to buy the cool collars from Sullivans. We put them on during mid day around 10am and taken them off around 4pm during the hot time of day. with the calf being in a.c and infront of fans the cool collars help keep their body temp down and hair growing. We take them off at 4, hose them off then stick them in our freezer to the next morning. Hope this helps. Good luck!

Yeah, that I think would be the best solution.

We are getting ready to put a pole barn, is that microfoil insulation that they want to put on the inside of the roof metal worth the cost.  I think it almost adds a couple grand to the cost.  Their big selling point is that it will be hard to add later.

 

[GoWyo]

For barn insulation I have been in a couple of barns with about an inch of foam sprayed on.  Makes it really nice because everything is sealed as far as wind and there is no sagging blanket insulation.  Planning to do that with my barn in the next month or so.  It will probably be twice as expensive as the blanket-type insulation.

 

[polevaultcowboy21]

It is a 12 x 24 room. But I think we are just going to build a shell over the barn. When I read this I thought why didn't I think of that before. Thank ya'll everyone really had some good ideas. The shell deal just makes more since and we still have a lot of material we need to use up before the next school year

 

[Westtexas1005]

When y'all say she'll are y'all just meaning the east, west sides and the room? The the whole thing.?