New heating system from Hydor

A new system for brooding broilers has been introduced on a Shropshire unit that claims to offer significant fuel savings and better heat distribution.

Infra-red radiant tube heaters have been installed in two out of four broiler sheds on the unit of Heath and Sons, not far from Harper Adams College.

The heaters, which have been imported from the USA, are an alternative to whole house heating. The tube heaters work by radiating heat downwards over a large area, thereby primarily warming the floor first rather than heating the air in the house.

“This technology presents significant savings in gas usage, and produces a much better brooding environment when compared with whole house heating,” said Duncan Burl, managing director of Hydor Ltd, which supplied and installed the system.

Mr Burl explained that using radiant heaters puts the heat where it is needed, down on the floor where the birds are, rather than heating up the roof space first as with blown air heaters – heat which is then sucked straight out of the building by the roof fans.

The result, according to the first three crops through the shed at the Heath unit, is a much shorter warm-up time before the birds arrive, followed by the need for a lower overall house air temperature when brooding the crop, and consequent savings in gas.

Warm-up time has dropped from two days to five hours, and the background temperature in the house has been lowered by 3-4C compared with the conventionally-heated houses on the site.

On the day of Poultry World‘s visit the chicks looked comfortable and were evenly distributed. Mr Burl explained that this method of heating meant that warmth was conducted by the floor right up to the edges of the house.

Family business

Although they have only been back in the broiler business since the start of the year, the Heath family had plenty of experience in growing broilers over a 12-year period, but some four years ago they were tempted to try their hand at free-range egg production.

The family comprises Peter Heath and his two sons, James and Alastair (pictured), who, apart from the poultry unit, manage a 100-sow pig unit plus followers, 35 acres of potatoes and 110 acres of arable.

The move into free-range eggs, however, was not as successful as they had hoped, in great part due to problems with the layout of the site, which made the unit labour-intensive. The recent down-turn in profitability was the final straw, and the decision was made to return to the familiarity of broiler growing.

“We came out at the right time,” says James, who was responsible for managing the free-range enterprise. “We definitely had the best of it.”

The broiler unit is now managed by Peter and Alastair, and the sheds were ready to receive the first birds by January this year.

With the opportunity to fit new equipment, Peter was aware of the sharp rise in gas prices since he was last in the business and, after the cold weather very early in the winter, decided to invest in the radiant heaters in two of the sheds.

Although they were considerably more expensive than blown air heaters, he believes that cutting corners on capital costs is a false economy: “The expense is negligible over the lifetime of the equipment. You can’t scrimp and save on capital costs.”

Shed layout

There are four sheds in total, each measuring 240 x 60ft, holding 29,000 birds. The radiant heaters are available in sizes from 10-16m long, and the shed dimensions required a run of five heaters down the length of the shed, staggered alternately left and right of the centre line. Wider sheds of 80m-plus would need heaters arranged in pairs down the length.

They operate by sucking air through a roof inlet, which is then mixed with propane (or natural gas), in a burner box and passed down the ceramic tube by a fan at the far end. The temperature of the gases at the start of the tube is 700C and a good temperature is maintained all the way down.

Unlike many ceramic tube heaters, says Mr Burl, these are designed to be able to withstand pressure washing at clean-out, including the ceramic tubes themselves.

Peter and Alastair are now on their third crop and are still learning how to tweak the ventilation to achieve optimum results with the new system. “After 15 years, I’m still learning something every other day,” says Peter.

So far it has not been possible to compare gas consumption between the radiant and conventionally-heated sheds, because they are all on a common gas supply without separate metering.

However, Hydor techincal sales engineer Toke Wilson, confirms that Farm Energy will be carrying our a documented trial for the next crop, which he expects will enable some firm figures to be attached to the gas savings.