Philippine Chicken Coop

Project Case Study · Cebu, Philippines

This 1,360 m² chicken coop in Cebu is a single 80-meter hall, 17 m wide and 4 m high, built for intensive poultry production in a tropical climate. Canglong’s package covered the Q235 H-section steel structure and the EPS sandwich panel roof and walls — the two systems that decide whether a poultry house stays cool, dry and washable through Philippine heat and rain.
The photographs on this page follow the build from bare frame to near-complete envelope, which is the part of a project like this worth documenting: the structure is straightforward; the discipline is in the sequencing.

• Location: Cebu, Philippines
• Building: Chicken coop, intensive production
• Dimensions: 80 m × 17 m × 4 m
• Floor area: 1,360 m²
• Package: Steel frame + EPS panels

Frame erection on site. The 17 m rafters arrive as welded H-sections and go up bay by bay; on a rural Cebu site with access like this, member size and delivery sequencing matter as much as the steel grade.

One Hall, 80 Metres Long

Poultry production rewards length. Feed lines, drinker rows and ventilation zones all run along the house, so an 80 m single hall gives the operator one continuous production environment instead of several rooms to manage separately. The 17 m width is the other half of the decision: it is wide enough for efficient equipment layout and bird density, yet still inside the range where a plain portal frame works without an interior column — which matters in a poultry house, because columns interrupt feeder and drinker lines and create cleaning dead zones.
The 4 m height is not generous, and that is deliberate. A poultry house does not need volumetric height the way a workshop does; it needs a controlled airspace that the ventilation system can actually move and condition. Extra height costs envelope money on every square meter of wall and buys nothing back in bird performance at this scale.

The Frame: Q235, and Why That Is the Right Grade Here

The beams and columns are Q235 H-section steel. At a 17 m span with no cranes and no heavy suspended equipment, Q235 carries the roof, the panel loads and the local wind loading with sensible section sizes — specifying a higher grade here would add cost without changing any dimension that matters. The double-slope roof discharges rain to both eaves, which halves the water each gutter handles and keeps the roof profile shallow enough for the tropical wind loads to stay manageable.

Where the grade would change: if the same house were built wider than roughly 20 m, or needed to carry suspended equipment, cranes, or a future second storey, the frame moves to Q355B to keep rafter depths down — the same logic we apply on our industrial buildings. Grade follows load, not habit. For the full reasoning on span, height and wind for poultry houses, our steel structure chicken house guide covers the specification decisions in detail.

Rafters going in by mobile crane. A 17 m span keeps every member light enough for ordinary site equipment — no heavy lift planning, no night closures of the access road.

The Envelope: EPS Sandwich Panels in a Poultry House

Both the roof and the walls are EPS sandwich panels — a polystyrene core between two pre-coated steel faces. In a Philippine poultry house this is a working decision, not a default, and it earns its place on three counts:

Heat. Single-sheet steel in tropical sun turns the interior into an oven by mid-afternoon; the birds sit at floor level where the radiant load is worst. The panel core breaks that heat path, so the interior tracks closer to the ventilation system’s design conditions instead of the roof surface temperature. That is what keeps the house livable through the hottest months without oversizing the fans.

Washability. Poultry houses are disinfected between batches, and the interior face of a sandwich panel is a smooth, sealed surface that tolerates washing and chemical disinfectant. Blockwork or bare sheet gives the pathogens edges and pores to survive in. Between batches, a washable envelope is the difference between a one-day turnaround and a three-day one.

Corrosion. Ammonia, humidity and disinfectant chemicals attack uncoated and lightly coated steel from the inside. The pre-coated panel faces, with sealed joints, put a barrier where the environment is harshest.

Wall panels going on. The panels arrive cut to length and fix directly to the frame — no wet trades, which is what keeps the envelope program short enough to matter in a build with a fixed restocking date.

The Project at a Glance

The house near completion. The lower lean-to along the side wall extends the covered working area outside the bird zone — feed staging and handling stay dry without paying to air-condition them.

From This Page to a Specification

This page documents one built house. The decisions behind the next one — span and eave height against bird density, the ventilation loads the frame has to allow for, which coating survives your ammonia levels, and the four numbers we need before quoting — are set out properly in our steel structure chicken house application guide. If your project covers other livestock as well, the livestock shed product page carries the full range with envelope options and indicative pricing. And for a different use of the same steel system on the same island, see our pickleball court building in Cebu.

About Canglong

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