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Sam Ski Area Management - stable_management - Index

26 / STABLEMANAGEMENT / stable-management.com
DOUBLE DUTY
Fans aren’t just for cooling things down.
They can help heat the barn during winter.
BY ELLEN FELD
Many farms use fans during the summer
to help cool stalls and aisles in
their barns. But have you considered
using these same fans in the winter to
bring warm air to your horses and
clients?
HOW IT WORKS
Whether you live in California or
Maine, you can take advantage of the
warm air going to waste in your barn.
“Both horses and humans give off
heat,” says Adam Hatton, the agricultural
market development specialist
at Big Ass Fans in Lexington, Ky.,
“and in an enclosed environment such
as a barn, that heat has to go somewhere.”
Where it goes is up. “Because
hot air rises,” says Janet Dahl, president
of Northwest Envirofan in
Oshkosh, Wis., “there can be significant
temperature differences between
the floor and the roof, and heat
trapped at the roof is wasted.”
“In the winter,” Hatton adds, “it
may be 30 degrees where you’re
standing, but there can be a 10- to 30degree
difference between where you
are and the roof, depending on the
height of the ceiling, the size and
design of the barn, and the number of
inhabitants. A four-stall barn may not
produce much heat, but in a 40-stall
barn, there is a lot of heat generated.”
Hatton argues that it makes no
sense to let that valuable heat escape
through the roof when you can utilize
it by slowly moving it back down to
where humans and horses can enjoy
it. By running a large fan at a low
speed, the heat that has accumulated
at ceiling level will move down along
the walls to the floor, where it will
then rise again, creating a more
evenly heated barn.
Hatton emphasizes that the heat
needs to be slowly moved down from
the ceiling. A traditional high-speed
fan placed on the stall grate or directly
above the horse will just blow in one
direction across the horse’s back,
moving cold air sideways. Also, if
you run the fan at too high a speed,
instead of bringing the warm air
down, Hatton warns, you’ll actually
cool the barn by dispersing the heat
too quickly.
CALIFORNIA VS. MAINE
As noted earlier, regardless of the
region of the country, fans are quite
useful in the winter. “You could
argue,” says Hatton, “that facilities in
northern climates would need fans
more than say California or Texas.
They leave horses indoors more often,
have longer winters, and might have
bad weather when they can’t turn
horses out for several days at a time.
Horses are standing in methane,
ammonia, urea; standing in a non-natural
environment. You need to create
a bit of a breeze so that it feels natural
for them. Addtionally, the particulates
in the air, are reduced or at the
very least are homogenized so they
are the same throughout the barn. So
the stalls get flushed out, not just the
aisles.”
Barry Goldsher, president of
FarmTek in South Windsor, Conn.,
adds, “You can open doors at both
ends of your barn for 15 minutes
while running circulating fans at full
speed, exchange the air, then close the
doors back up. You’ll be far better off
then if you keep the barn door closed
all day.”
In warmer climates, fans are still
quite useful, to flush out the barn and
get fresh air into the stalls. Then, if
there is a chill at night, the fans can
be used to move the warmer air down
from the ceilings.
LOW CEILINGS?
Many barns are designed with two
floors, utilizing the top floor for hay
storage. This creates low ceilings
above the horses’ stalls. Add the
numerous obstructions, such as stall
partitions, and airflow becomes quite
restricted. Can you still take advantage
of warm air above the animals?
Yes, but “it is going to be difficult to
position a ceiling fan so that it is
effective and doesn’t hit horses’
heads,” says Goldsher.
An effective solution: use of high
quality basket fans (similar to those
sold in department stores, with blades
in the basket for protection). “They
should be positioned up in the corners,
as high as possible, so nobody
hits them, and should be set up to
move air in a square or rectangular
fashion,” Goldsher says. “For example,
with a barn that runs 20 feet wide
by 60 feet long, we might suggest putting
four small diameter fans in the
corners; two on one side, two on the
other, moving air in the opposite
direction. That would help get air
moving around the barn.”
ARENAS
Indoor rings can also benefit from the
use of fans in the winter, Goldsher
explains. “If it’s a large arena, say 100