Energy Savings and Farmyard Shelterbelts

Anyone living on the Prairies knows that winter winds are harsh, cold and unrelenting. The benefits of planting shelterbelts - rows of trees and shrubs - around a farmstead become obvious during the long winter season.

A common problem farmers face every winter is heat loss through conduction and infiltration. Conduction is the loss of heat through the walls and windows to the outside of a home, while infiltration is when cold air seeps into a building though cracks, doors and other openings. Shelterbelts are useful in that they reduce your home's winter heat loss by diminishing wind velocity.

Tests conducted by staff at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's (AAFC's) Shelterbelt Centre in Indian Head, SK have illustrated the benefits of yard shelterbelts for reducing home heating costs. The Centre is administered by AAFC's Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA).

By comparing the heating costs from homes on protected and unprotected sites, researchers found that shelterbelts reduce fuel use by 18 to 25 per cent. These savings are a result of reduced wind speed, which lowers the rate of both conduction and infiltration.

How effective a shelterbelt is in lowering heat costs depends on the height of the trees and shelterbelt porosity, with the denser and taller shelterbelts being more effective. Dense shelterbelts are ones that have five rows: one row containing a shrub species, two containing deciduous tree species, and two rows of evergreens.

Shelterbelts are now considered an integral part of any Prairie farmyard. As time goes by, more uses and benefits of trees are being discovered. Heating costs and related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are reduced in farmyards protected by shelterbelts.