We have 3 horses outside Atlanta and a shed row barn. We use stall guards for the doors and the front of the stalls have the metal posts (for the life of me, I can’t remember what they’re called). In the summer, the stalls are hot and we need to work out better air flow then. We enlarged the stalls and fixed some of that this year. In the winter, the stalls are really cold. Our overhang is about 8’ x 41’, so getting PVC strips would be on the expensive side. I would like something that lets the light through, that we can take down after winter, and that the horses can walk through at least on one end. Any ideas or sources will really be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Clear vinyl of a decent weight is going to be a bit dear but it’s probably the cheapest way to get a windbreak while still letting light through. I bought heavy 20 gauge to create a wind block for a chicken run from fabric.com last year. At the time they had the best prices. I had the bright idea to sew the edges with cordura and use boat cover snaps but that was before I remembered I have zero time for a large chicken related sewing project. :rolleyes: I have only finished two panels but the vinyl is perfect for that use.
Perhaps you could find a local seamstress or upholstery shop that would give you a decent deal on edging panels if you supply the material? This is more of a permanent solution but if you’re going to have the same issue year after year it might be less of a headache in the end.
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Instead of stopping the wind once it’s already reached the shed, I’d create a wind ‘shadow’ around your shed by placing a windbreak at the right distance away. A row of roundbales stacked 2-high would be very effective.
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Have you considered making large panels with that greenhouse plastic corrugated material? Like erecting and removing storm windows each season, you could have a series of large framed panels which could hang at the edge of your 8’ overhang and provide a windbreak. I’m imagining them as full-height panels but narrow enough that they are not too heavy or unwieldy to handle, or having the framing to support them go up separately and then designing a system to easily attach the panels after the frames are set in place, if the first way is too heavy. If you do this, you might not need to have a solid wall of panels across the front of your shedrow; having several strategically spaced might do the trick.
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If what you are looking for is not screens, but transparent plastic sheeting, Farmtek has those:
https://www.farmtek.com/farm/supplie…;pg105657.html
We bought some of that for a screen door we wanted to leave open in the winter, but not the cold come in.
It has the dog door on it.
Maybe more expensive than screens for the larger areas.
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we have used wind screening material used on athletic courts…tennis and baseball parks… the material panels are 12 feet wide by 40 feet in length… has attachment grommets in place… the attached photo is one section we overlaid on the round pen …this is doubled since it draped over the rails… cost was nothing as these were the used panels that were being replaced with new at the athletic complex
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Wow! There’s a lot to consider and I think we can use a couple different applications in different places. One is the back door so we can get better insulation in the barn during the warm months, which we desperately need. We can probably use the heavy plastic/vinyl over one of the Dutch doors (the top half of the door is missing), put a tarp on one side of the shed row where there’s a gate. We don’t use that gate as that’s where the ground has given way in the past and fell into the creek. We could try that solid plastic partway down and use the PVC strips where they exit. We’ll put all our heads together and decide what to do. Thanks for the awesome ideas. They’ll make our barn a better place. @HungarianHippo I really like your idea of using a shield, trying to figure out how I could make it work.
Thanks so much everyone! It’s been really helpful!
@Dressage59 a rule of thumb for how big and where your windbreak should be placed: the area protected by the windbreak extends 10 to 15 times the height of the windbreak. So, if your shield is 10ft tall, that’ll create a protected area of 100-150ft. Could be more, just depends on the topography, etc. In addition to height, you need to make it sufficiently long, because the wind will swirl around the ends and want to come in from the sides.
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I’m currently looking into a roll up curtain product to break winter winds. I’ve been taking to tarpsnow.com. They have some different options you can check out.
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You guys probably have serious winters, but out here the farmers use shade cloth for crop windbreaks – they appear tobe mounted as panels on pipe frames.
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that is basically what we use, it is the version used for wind screening on baseball diamonds and tennis courts… breaks the wind but does allow for some penetration reducing the wind load
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A lot of really great ideas! We ended up going the easy route. We’re putting vinyl over the grids. I also ordered some insulated PVC strip doors to cover the stall doors. So overall, we’re just doing the stall areas and not the overhang - compromise with my DH that we can both live with. Thanks so much for all the ideas. I love the tarp websites and will probably use those in the future. Really loved the windbreak idea also, would have the horses eating the hay though. Thanks!
