Barn Gas Monitoring with Automated Ventilation Control

Project 18-006 - Lead Researcher: John Van de Vegte, OMAFRA

John Van de Vegte, OMAFRA
Barn gas monitoring with automated ventilation control

Farrowing, nursery and finishing barns do require a designed ventilation system to manage air quality within the pig housing areas. Ventilation system performance is optimized through the use of a sophisticated ventilation system controller that must include automated static pressure management.

Within the farrowing and finishing barns, carbon dioxide and ammonia levels indicated that there is some room for improvement possible through the optimization of the existing ventilation system settings.

The data collection conducted in the nursery barn does indicate that improved air quality does have a positive impact on pig health and performance and thereby on cost of production as well as revenue generation. The associated reduction in cost of production justifies the increase in electricity and gas expense. A key outcome of this project is the demonstrated importance of active modulated static pressure control to manage static pressure levels within the pig housing areas. Active static pressure control is critical to manage air inlet velocities, especially in the cold winter months. Higher fresh air inlet velocities are required to promote mixing to improve air quality at pig level and also reduce heater gas consumption by driving the hot air at ceiling back into the pen. This effect was demonstrated in the final 2 production cycles in the nursery room. The gas consumption in the test room which employing actuated ceiling inlets was lower than that in the control room which employed counterbalanced ceiling inlets.