Over the past few days, we?ve been dealing with some exceptionally cold weather for this time of year. Fortunately, it looks like the temperatures will warm up again soon, but the cold weather should serve as a reminder that winter isn?t too far off. That means now is the time for hog producers to think about the best way to keep their livestock nice and warm through the winter months. Mark Oberreuter, a design ventilation engineer for Automated Production, shared some common ventilation mistakes he sees swine producers make during cold weather and how to avoid them.
?There are two main areas there,? Oberreuter said. ?One is making sure the heaters are working properly, so test run them, having parts on hand, things like that. The other big thing you want to make sure of is that in the settings on your control as it turns those heaters on and off, sometimes people get a little bit aggressive and try to maintain to constantly have a temperature, and they?ll run that start and stop temperature for heaters too close to setpoint. So, when the heaters turn on, and then they turn back off again, the temperature in the room will still keep rising above setpoint. That’ll start ramping up fans because your temperature went above setpoint, and therefore it’ll waste heat by exhausting that heat.?
During the winter months, proper maintenance is key. Oberreuter said one of the biggest mistakes is overlooking dirty shutters, which can cause them to become sticky and barely open.
?Make sure shutters are clean, that way they can open freely because we’re going to be at low ventilation rates and dirty shutters can easily stick and not let air out as needed,? Oberreuter said. ?The next thing is wind protection, something to think about either with adding on components to the end of the fan like a wind deflector hood or having something else out there to stop the wind. But as we slow fans down it becomes much harder to combat any wind that is blowing against them.?
Obviously, it?s important to make sure that your facilities are getting proper air flow as well. Oberreuter said it?s important to make sure that all ceiling inlets are properly adjusted.
?And we’ll make sure that all the hardware, actuation, pulleys and cables and such, are nice and true and making sure all the inlets are opening up evenly, so you have a nice even distribution of air as the air is coming in,? Oberreuter said. ?And also, we have it at the right amount of opening to produce a good velocity of that air coming into the barn. That way it’ll mix the air properly evenly all over the room and get that moisture out.?
For more information, contact your local equipment dealer or visit www.automatedproduction.com.
