Extreme Cool Room

[ShowSteerCentral]

We are looking into building a new show barn with what I consider to be a fairly extreme cool room. We were looking at going with something like a 36'x64' at the largest. It would have 2 rows of 12'x16' pens (8 total) with a 12' aisle if we went with that size. I suppose my question to all of you is, do you think it would be feasible to cool something like that if heavily insulated and built right? Also, has anyone seen anything like this where the cool room is basically just a cooled barn rather than a room inside of a barn that has a tie rail.

Thanks.

 

[ferkj]

I hope you own a power plant or get free electricity.

 

[woltemathangus]

yeah i have been in bigger rooms but i wouldnt think you would need that big of a center aisle. you will need multiple units

 

[ShowSteerCentral]

Would an 8' aisle be better?

 

[afhm]

Magness has a air conditioned barn, Westfall Bros in Mo. did too.  Only problem with it other than cost is what are you going to do with the ones that don't need to be in the cooler yet?

 

[Ohio1]

http://www.steerplanet.com/bb/hall-of-fame/building-a-new-barn/

 

[frostback]

Magness has a air conditioned barn, Westfall Bros in Mo. did too.  Only problem with it other than cost is what are you going to do with the ones that don't need to be in the cooler yet?

Magness barn only has swamp coolers in it. There are 4 roof mounted units. It is very insulated.

 

[AI Man]

what kinda floor are u going to use

 

[DSC]

I have never heard of a cooler that big. The best one I have ever seen or worked in has 8 pens along one side I think they were 14 x 14s. Two pens each shared a 4ft garage door that emptied into the runs. There was a 12' alley that ran down the center of the barn. On the other side was a big cooler not sure how long but 14' deep. It didn't run the whole length of the barn. On the end of the cooler there was a wash rack and a clipping chute (palco I think). It worked awesome for steers, breeding heifers, bulls, and sale calves. The main barn was cooled with two porta cools. I wouldn't think there would be any reason to cool a whole building to cooler like temps.

 

[hillvalley]

We built a barn a year and a half ago and cool/heat the whole thing. We live in  SE WI so we heat in the winter as well.  Our barn is 44 X 80 and the goal is to keep the temp in the barn between 40 and 60 all year long.  We feel the most important aspect, and often overlooked is insulation.  In the spring/fall time of year it is pretty easy to stay in the targeted temp range.  In the winter time, the system only kicks on when temps fall below 10 degrees at night, it doesn’t take much to keep it 40.  The challenge is the summer time where you are not only battling the heat but the humidity as the humidity needs to be taken out of the air before you can cool efficiently.  The space is easy to cool, it is the number of wet animals that create heat/humidity that is the tough part.  When we figured the cooling capacity that is needed with our contractor we used one steer/heifer to 10 human beings.  This past summer the temp in the barn held 60, even though it was one of the hottest summers on record.  I don’t know if this is the ‘extreme’ you are looking for, but the whole barn is cooled.
If you have any questions feel free to ask.