Heat Shields

[Guest]

How about heat shiels mounted on roof tops on say a 3/4" standoffs and open at the peak for escaping thermal drafts. This would allow airflow cooling of both the shield and rooftop.

Or am I getting carried away unnessarily and its not a problem to begin with?


dick

[Guest]

Provided the heat shields don't impact the ability for the PMs to perch on and around the house, I don't see any problem with the idea, especially if you're planning on installing these on a new house that the PMs haven't gotten used to.

Would be a good project for the off-season, I think.

[Scully]

Heat certainly is a major problem here in Texas, and our student science projects suggest that while ventilation has a somewhat limited cooling effect, direct sunlight has a great effect in warming the inside of a gourd. (At least the plain plastic sort of gourd, Bernie's styrofoam houses are probably something else entirely).


I would think that a heat shield mounted just above the housing as per your description could be very effective. Possible drawbacks might be increased weight when raising or lowering the houses, increased cost, and especially increased wind resistance during storms. It is not uncommon for housing to be blown down by the severe windshear sometimes associated with our Texas thunderstorms.

Mike Scully

[Guest]

Hey Scully, this old Texas heat and wind wouldn't dare blow down my planned facility I'm to old to rebuild so its a oneshot deal. If I'm successful them I'll trade my wife off cheap for a second setup LOL

dick

[klcretired]

If someone figure's it out please be sure to let us all know, I have a LS Goliad house & LS Gourd Rack ....both get really hot, heat has always been an issue here in Texas.I had some Premature fledgelings last year and i feel it was because of the heat.

[Guest]

I am going to glue styrofome to the roof and paint it with coolseal. No weight
Rocky

[Guest]

This is not the best solution for all folks, especially if you are at work during the worst heat of the day but....I will often gently mist our housing when the heat is intense....if martins are present, they seem to know what's going on and they stay....flapping their wings and shaking their wings with joy as they stay perched above!

Sue
City by the Sea, TX

[BumBee]

I made a water mister for my PM housing three or four years ago.
It worked well enough but I was not there during the day to turn it
on when it was needed. Today I suppose one could get a water timer
to make this thing be effective.

I got all of the materials from Lowe?s (not a plug) garden center.

I?ll take pictures of it this weekend. Any one that would like to see
them, contact me and I?ll send them to you. I ran out of PHOTO space
here.

?Got CRS? so be patient with me.

[BumBee]

Folks,
I know that this will not be practical for the Purple Martin housing far from a faucet,
But to the suburbanites, I think this will be helpful.

Here is the site that Terry placed it on.

http://purplemartins.com/Topics/Bumby/water_mister.html

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Some people place insulation, styrofoam, etc on the roof and the west walls to help reduce the heat. I think those are excellent ideas. Any way possible to help keep them cool should be a hugh aid when the temps get above about 95deg. The martins can take quite a bit of heat, but the extremely hot days do cause some nestlings to die.

[Sparky]

Since I'm from Space City USA , I naturally chose a NASA product to coat my housing. I sprayed my housing with ceramic micro pellets mixed in paint from Hytech sales. http://www.hytechsales.com/insulating_p ... tives.html

Next year I plan to use datalogger thermometers (similar to what Scully used) to measure temp differences between coated and uncoated housing.

For this year, I just barely got the housing painted in time for the season.

[adrianhans]

I have wondered about putting radiant barrier inside the gourds. Then pondered if the martin's reflection would make them think it was already occupied.