It’s already almost the end of February. Crazy how the time seems to fly by. Also, it means that we’re more than halfway with the housing course. I’ve told you about a couple of excursions(to Jälla and Lövsta) we’ve done for this course so far, but this time I’d like to give you some insight into another aspect of the course. No cute pictures of piglets any longer! Last week we had a so-called workshop in mechanical ventilation. Torsten Hörndahl came over all the way from SLU Alnarp (close to Lund) to learn us the ins and outs of ventilation of farm buildings. A serious afternoon of hard work.
“Ventilation plays an important role in keeping temperature and humidity within the limits of both good animal welfare and good human comfort.”
We started with a lecture on mechanical ventilation. First of all we discussed why do we ventilate? Besides guaranteeing fresh air to every animal, ventilation plays an important role in keeping temperature and humidity within the limits of both good animal welfare and good human comfort. Not in all cases ventilation has to be mechanical, depending on the type of building and amount of animals, natural ventilation may be sufficient. When using mechanical ventilation, it’s important to realize whether you’ll design a system with or without a pressure difference between inside and outside the building. Both have their pros and cons regarding efficiency, safety and costs.
After listening for a couple of hours the workshop took place. We were divided into groups and given several documents we were going to work with. Not only was our understanding of the theory tested, we were challenged to make calculations as well. I must admit it was a long day and the tasks were not easy. However in the end I think we did get the hang of it and i’d say we learned a lot more by doing the actual calculations and answering questions rather than just listening. Guaranteed that next time when walking into a stable, you’ll look at all those air out- and inlets in a different way!
Any questions? Feel free to ask.
Rosan