Hired-Hand

Frequently Asked Questions (Evaporative Cooling)

How do I decide when evaporative cooling should be turned on?

Evaporative cooling should be turned on before heat build-up begins to hurt bird performance. It is easier and better to keep heat build-up from happening than to try to reduce the heat load after it has progressed too far. For fully-feathered birds, this usually means turning on evaporative cooling when temperatures get into the 80- to 85-degree F range (27 C to 30 C). Growers also should realize that evaporative cooling does not have to be delayed until the house is in full tunnel with all fans running. This can be especially important with younger birds, which are more sensitive to wind-chill. Using fewer fans reduces the wind speed, and evaporative cooling is more efficient when run with slower air speed, so that you can get the same effective cooling at lower cost.

Product Categories: Evaporative Cooling

I have heard that the "wind-chill" effect disappears entirely when air temperature gets into the high 90s F (35+ C). If this is true, and my tunnel broiler house does not have evaporative cooling, should I just turn the fans off when the temperature goes that high?

It is true that as air temperature approaches 100 F (38 C) we get much less equivalent temperature reduction or "effective cooling" from tunnel airflow. This is, however, definitely not a reason to turn ventilation off. Air must flow across birds to remove heat that is being dissipated. Without evaporative cooling, you certainly will see performance losses and higher mortalities in an extremely high temperature situation. But you are still better off removing as much heat from the house as possible, and this is what full tunnel ventilation does, whether any "wind-chill" is achieved or not. Coping with such high temperatures is possible only with evaporative cooling, which should be considered by any grower in a locale where temperatures reach this range very often or stay there very long.

Product Categories: Evaporative Cooling