Is Your Water System Designed for Peak Demand?

Water availability is an increasingly common problem on a number of broiler farms during hot weather. The biggest contributor to this situation is the increasing use of evaporative cooling pads. The typical six-inch evaporative cooling pad system can, at times, use 20% more water than a fogging pad system and four times the water of a traditional interior fogging system. But, an interesting fact is that over the course of a day the evaporative cooling system typically uses less water than the bi...rds drink. Even on a hot and dry day the evaporative cooling system may use only a little more water than the birds. So how can a simple doubling of water usage cause problems on so many farms? The answer lies in the fact that it is not the total amount of water the evaporative cooling system uses but rather the short term demands that pad systems can place on a farm’s water system that can prove problematic.