Framing a shed (chicken coop) roof

[sakoluvr]

Folks, bear with me. I am not much of a carpenter, but love building stuff.

I am getting ready to build a chicken coop. I like the one pictured. Dimensions are roughly 4' wide x 6' long. With the nest boxes, I am figuring it to be 6' wide.

I am wondering about the gable roof. I am thinking about putting the front wall (with the 2 windows and external access to the nest boxes) @ 6.0', to allow entrance and standing room.

The back wall will be at 4.0'.

Would a 6/12 roof work for this? The roof must be slanted correctly with sufficiant overhang to keep rain dripping on the center (or out farther) of the nest box lid.

Unlike the picture, I want to frame everything out. Should my ridgeboard support at the end gable be at 3' (run), based on a span of 6' (with the nest boxes sticking out)?

I am a little confused about the difference between the height between the front and rear walls, and will my rafter angles be identicle for both sides of the ridge board?

Should I just rafter 1 side first, and then start from scratch on the higher wall? Whew. Thanks for any guidance.

I am looking for at least 18" from the ground to the floor. I thought I would just extend four 4x4's all the way up to the tops of the walls, and tie in the wall frame between them. here are pictures of the coop:

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h50/Sakoluvr/red_coop2_lg.jpg

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h50/Sakoluvr/right_view_lg.jpg

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h50/Sakoluvr/ceiling_lg.jpg

[Don_P]

In the pics it looks like the side is 4' from back wall to front and that the ridge is 42-44" from the back wall. If the ridge is 6' off the floor and you want to lose 6" for every foot towards the back wall then it is roughly 3.5' x 6" or about 21" lower than the ridge.

One question, why not make it a single lower pitch simple shed roof. Say a 4/12 with no ridge just an extended overhang to the front, then all water is directed off the rear rather than landing on the nest box lid... T-1-11 has a tough enough time holding up to the elements without bouncing water on it. You're also making a muddy spot where you need to walk daily by dumping water in the front.

It is a cute little house though, How many nest boxes and how many birds can use this? Is it meant to be dragged from pasture to pasture? Your plan to run the corners all the way up would help brace it well, it would take some modification of the front, runnint the post down from the wall corner not the nest box corner, I would keep the skid full length out front to help keep it from rolling over in the wind.

Funny we were discussing free range layers not 10 minutes ago as our new way to keep the wolf from the door (although he might be at theirs :D ). I was coming up with a minimum of about 1200 birds to make it worthwhile as a biz. I like chicken but I'm not sure that much.

Off topic but if housing has collapsed and manufacturing is gone, we're back to an agrarian society. We've been raising the garden fencing over the winter, intending to have both venison and veggies this year.

[sakoluvr]

Hey Don, thanks for the response.

I am only going to house 6-8 hens in there. I am planning on attaching a run to the side of the house, using the same rafter angles, only a little lower. Very little free ranging. This is basically a suburban/backyard coop. Yep, we love our venison too!

I may put a rain gutter on the front to prevent a muddy spot in front of the egg boxes. I may cover the nest box lid with tin or ??? I am only going to put in 2 or 3 boxes at the most (centered), so a 4x4 at each corner will not be an issue with the nest boxes. The remaining room inside will be for a feeder, tucked out of the way so it won't get pooped on.

I like this design too much to change the roof to a shed roof. I really want to be a little challenged with this design.

What do you think about my cyphering here:

Using a 3' run, that would put my ridge board 12" in from the front wall (instead of ~ 6"). That should give me a little more standing room inside.

I like the looks of a fairy steep roof, so what if I went with a 8-in-12 slope?

So, 8x3= 24", which is 2' of rise. That should give a peak height of 6' (4' height of the back wall + 2' rise)?

Maybe a 2' projection of the overhang over the nest boxes?

[Don_P]

By Jove, I think you've got it :)

I didn't see your cyphers till I got ready to post. I sketched a 6/12 and went 43" from the rear face of the ridge to the back of the rear post. The ratio of vertical rise to horizontal run on a 6/12 is 1:2 so that gave me a 21-1/2" drop in 43". The hypotenuse of a 6/12 is 1.1180 times longer than the horizontal run so the rafter plumb to plumb length would be about 48-1/16" in that example. The line length ratio is 1.2018 for an 8/12, this calc does that as well;
http://windyhilllogworks.com/Calcs/rftllclc.htm

One other modification that might be worth thinking about. Inside at night if you can flip down a cover over the nesting boxes that has a perch on it it'll keep em happy but out of the boxes. Might keep cleanup of them down.

[sakoluvr]

Don- fantastic! You must do this for a living. I love the sketch.

I am an enviornmental biologist, so cutting wood at an angle kinda hurts my head. :confused: We are almost neighbors- I am in NC.

I used the calculator on this site.

Any suggestions on roofing material? I have used Ondura in the past, and it seems like a decent product. I have no knowledge of metal ag panels, but I like that too. Ondura does not need sheathing.

Any suggestions on siding, besides T-1-11? I was thinking about board and batten. It seems like any easy siding to fit. Thinking about some kind of "clear" stain on the siding, regardless of what I use.

Hey, sounds like you know chickens. I like the idea about keeping them out of the nest at night.

Don, thank you so much for taking the time to draw the sketch and giving your opinion/advice.

[Don_P]

Ooops, I forgot Rich's roof calc, his actually does a much better job than mine.

You're quite welcome. Thank you for the design, our chicken empire should probably start out at about that size. There is a demand up here right now for organic free range eggs so the little I know was just lucky timing, the nest box suggestion came from a meeting my wife was at about a week ago. Once they have a crispy tan I know chickens pretty well :D

With the fumes I'd bet the Ondura would do better than metal.

B&B is a nice siding and you are right it is simple, add a row of horizontal blocking at mid height to nail to. The boards do best if nailed at about the third points of their width and the batten nails should not go through the boards but through the gap between the boards. This lets the boards expand and contract a bit without being tempted to split by being pinned at their extreme edges.

UV's "see" through a clear finish so they tend to be much shorter lived than one with more pigment. But you can always start clear and add pigment to successive coats on down the line if needed. It might be worth giving the lumber a bath in borate before you finish to make it less appealing to insects and fungi.

Environmental biologist... are you around the RTP?
We're tarheel transplants. I'm just over the border above Mayberry and Mount Pilot,

Angles in wood aren't too bad, carpenters get to burn their mistakes. I'd hate to be a plumber. The sketch was done with google's free Sketchup program, good stuff.

[sakoluvr]

Sketchup program huh? Gonna have to look that up.

Snowing up your way? I live in Wake County. Way too crowded for me. Schools are getting to be a nightmare. Re-district stuff is driving my wife and I crazy. Ultimately, the kids are getting shafted.

I bet there is some good hunting your way. Lots of turkeys?

Why horizontal blocking at the mid level? I have a stack of pine boards (8"?) that I thought I could use for the siding with 1' wide battens. The nails in the boards will get hidden by the battens, right? Figure it would be a little cheaper than buying siding.

[Don_P]

We both grew up outside Durham, were schooled during the period of desegregation. My wife stayed in the grade school we were in, I was bussed to the old "seperate but equal" school, it wasn't. The games administrators play will probably never end... unfortunately.

Didn't see as many turkey this year as normal, I read this morning what a bunch of them is, "a dule of turkeys". We see the occasional bear and bobcat. I'm pretty sure there's a bear den somewhere in the rocks at the end of our property. One of the neighbors got a 400 pounder just below there a few years ago. That cliff is the end of the blue ridge here, as I look north we see the nat'l forest which is the beginning of the valley and ridge topography almost a billion years younger than our mountain. I drive the old beach road every morning... we bought 300 million years too late :) We're on granite, they are on limestone, caves and all.

We got 5-6 inches of heavy stuff, the power just came back on, it went out a few moments after I posted yesterday.

On the nail spacing, if the wood is fully seasoned it probably won't matter, but, when you pin the edges of a wide board it stands a good chance of splitting if it shrinks. A rule of thumb is to keep the nails within about 5" of each other on the width of a board, no nails outside of that 5" swath. For B&B, ideally there should be a horizontal nailer every 2' or so... I've been known to cheat, but at least be able to nail bottom, middle and top. 1" is a mighty narrow batten, it would probably be ok, generally they are in the 2-4" range.

One of our clients that is from Cary snapped the attached pic off the back porch of their cabin up here.

[sakoluvr]

We got about 2-3 inches. No school today. It doesn't take much, but that is fine by me. I like staying home with the kids.

OK, wider battens make more sense. They will look better too. I should start building in a about 2 weeks, after a couple of other obligations are met. I sketched everything out today, and I am ready to write a materials list. I hate shopping.

I got me some baby chickens coming in at the end of April. The kids are gonna be all over them things!

You need to check out this site sometime:

http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/index.php

[Don_P]

She won, chicks are coming in a couple of weeks. I had an old 4x8 trailer laying around and some scrap wood so we started building a portable coop that we can move around the pasture. There's still a good bit to go but this is what it looks like so far. I was going for the gypsy caravan look, calling it the "coop deville" :)
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x109/windyhilll/coopdeville2.jpg

[sakoluvr]

I love it! We got 3 babies in a week ago, and 5 more coming by Tuesday. They are in a brood box right now. I am about 75% done on my coop.