Stop Heating Your Ceiling: A Better Way to Warm Up Old Poultry Houses
If you’re working with an old poultry house, you already know the struggle. The heat just vanishes. You feel it the second you walk in—cold drafts here, a weirdly warm pocket there. Most folks try to fix this by just cranking up the old boilers. Trust me, don’t do that. You’re just burning money to heat the air and the rafters. The real trick is switching over to infrared (IR) heating lamps. Here’s the thing about IR. Standard forced-air systems try to warm up every cubic inch of air in the room. It’s inefficient. Infrared is different. It sends energy straight to the birds. We usually stick with shortwave or medium-wave emitters because they punch through to the brooding area without wasting energy on the walls. Basically, you stop trying to heat the building and just focus on the livestock. Getting the setup right You can’t just grab any lamp and call it a day. You’ve got to look at your ceiling height. If the wattage is too low, the heat never reaches the floor. Too high? You’ll end up scorching your birds. I usually suggest quartz-halogen tubes. They’re great because they hit the right temperature almost the second you flip the switch. No waiting around. But watch out for your wiring. Old grids can be finicky. Before you plug everything in, make sure your circuits can actually handle the extra pull. If you decide to jump from 110V to 220V to keep the power steady, you’ll need to swap out the sockets. And please, use heat-resistant ceramics. Plastic housings will just melt under the heat of a high-wattage tube. It’s a mess you don’t want to clean up. The reality check Now, it’s not all magic. IR lamps create “hot spots.” You can’t just hang them up and walk away for the weekend. You need to actually walk the floor and map out the temperature. Your birds need a cool spot to retreat to if they get too warm. Plus, if your ventilation is a bit lazy, heat can build up at the ceiling and fry your electrical parts. Make sure your fans are working in sync with your heaters to keep the air moving. It keeps the birds happy and your equipment from burning out.