The invention relates to premises housing animals, especially poultry, and concerns a ventilation and heat exchanging system which contains one or more fans, one or more ducts for outgoing air, which extend extend through a inner ceiling to the general collecting air flue. Two flat sheets that are at a vertical distance of each other join the general collecting air flue, the gap between the sheets connecting to the general collecting air flue. Above the upper sheet, which functions as a heat exchanging sheet, there opens one or more ventilating ducts for air intake. This system is known from the FI-Patent publication No. 62413. In that system the outgoing air which drops in temperature cools the lower guiding sheet, and a great deal of warmth is transmitted to the outgoing air via this guiding sheet. Furthermore the humidity of the housing premises, condenses on the cold surface of the sheet, and leads to water dripping down from it. In addition, this lower guiding sheet continually absorbs the radiating heat from the inside of the housing facility.
The present invention means to improve the aforementioned system in the sense that the defects mentioned are avoided.
This invention is achieved through the characteristics of the invention related to in the enclosed claims.
The invention is described with reference to the drawings. In these
FIG. 1 presents the cross section of the premises housing animals which is equipped with a system according to this invention, and
FIG. 2 presents a cross section of the central regions of the system, enlarged.
As shown in FIG. 1, that portion of the premises for housing animals is defined by wall portions of the premises, including sidewall portions and a top wall portion or inner ceiling 5.
Through the inner ceiling 5 leads one or more ventilation ducts 1 to the roof of the premises. The ventilation duct 1 or ducts connect to the collecting air flue 6, which travels through the length of the facility. The fan 12 attends to the ventilation so, that in normal function the duct 1 acts as a flue for outgoing air.
In the sidewalls of the collecting air flue 6 there are two longitudinal slits 8, the added areas of which correspond to the cross-sectional area of the ducts 1 for a steady flow of the outgoing air. Due to a low pressure or vacuum fresh air infiltrates to the housing premises through the long slits 7 in the inner ceiling or in the sheets 5.
The incoming fresh air is separated from the outgoing air through a heat exchanging sheet 2. The outgoing air transfers a part of its thermal energy to the incoming fresh air via the sheet 2. The heat insulation 4 on the lower surface of the lower sheet 3 prevents the outgoing air, which already has transferred heat to the incoming air, from cooling the air inside the facility through the sheet 3. This is a decisive improvement for example to the system described in the FI-Patent publication No. 62413, that system necessarily having a significantly lower thermal benefiting ratio. In addition the heat insulation prevents condensed water from dropping into the housing from the lower surface of the sheet 3.
The humidity condensing on the heat exchanging sheet 2 drops on the sheet 3 and the water is led to drainage channel 9 to be disposed of. If ice is formed on the lower surface of sheet 2 during frost, the direction of the air current can be changed for a moment and the ice which is loosened by the warm air flowing above sheet 2 drops on the surface of sheet 3, and melts into channel 9. The formation of ice and water in the heat exchanger is favourable, since the vaporization energy then is derived from the outgoing air. This improves the thermal benefiting ratio of the system, and the area of the sheets 2 and 3 can be significantly reduced compared to the areas of those in for example the system described in the FI-Patent publication No. 62413.
The trundles 10 and the hinge structure 11 at the root of sheet 3 enable adjustment of the space between sheets 2 and 3. The sheet 3 hangs from a joint wire which consists of several adjoining wires and trundles 10, the joint wire being gathered by a winch. By turning the hoist the whole sheet 3 can be lowered down to for instance a 30.degree. angle, and thus the lower surface of sheet 2 and the whole sheet 3 can easly be cleaned. Furthermore, when the heat exchange system is not needed (for instance during summer) the thermal benefiting ratio in this position is almost zero. With the winch the benefiting ratio can thus be changed from zero to maximum.
If the ventilation is brought to a standstill the inner ceiling 5 must be totally heat insulated. In regular, continuous ventilation the heat insulation of the inner ceiling 5 can be zero near the collecting air flue 6, and gradually increase towards maximum by the outer surface of sheet 2.
The thickness of the heat insulation layer 4 on sheet 3 conveniently increases from the outer edge towards the collecting air flue 6. This insulation layer can be made for example by glueing sheets of Styrox on the lower surface of sheet 3, or by spraying polyurethane foam on the lower surface of sheet 3. The heat insulation ability of sheet 3 should in essence correspond with the heat insulation ability normally required by an inner ceiling 5.