One of the important areas of agricultural production in Poland is pig farming. The times when everyone had a few pigs at home are long gone. It is true that many farmers still have a few pigs for their own use "close to home", but due to the high market demand for meat, specialised piggeries are being built to ensure full control of the production processes - from breeding to achieving the right size and weight of the fattening pig.

Thanks to increasing veterinary requirements and the specifics of pig production, farmers are looking for more and more solutions to build piggery buildings in a way that is relatively quick, provides the best thermal performance and is easy to disinfect.

Walls in this type of building are usually built using the traditional method, but roofs are already designed from sandwich panels. The predominant panel filling is PIR foam. Depending on the size of the fattening pigs, the thickness of the roof panels varies between 80 and 120 mm. For the rearing of adult pigs, thinner slabs with poorer thermal performance are used, while facilities used for the breeding and development of piglets use thicker slabs which provide greater thermal comfort.

Manufacturers of sandwich panels have already adapted their products to the specific characteristics and environment of a piggery. The high concentration of ammonia prevailing inside such facilities necessitates the use of special coatings on the inner surface of the roof panel.

The most common solutions are the use of plates:

• Agro, otherwise known as fibreglass, where the inner side of the sandwich panel is a composite cladding made of glass fibre mat infused with polyester resin. This solution is less expensive than a typical sandwich panel with sheet metal cladding on both sides. The polyester surface is easy to clean, prevents the build-up of bacteria and algae and has a very high resistance to ammonia solutions. The composite cladding is more susceptible to mechanical damage, so the panel design requires higher density supports than a standard sandwich panel with sheet metal on both sides.
• PIR with 25µm thick SP25 coating, providing corrosion resistance class C3, which is the minimum for this type of environment
• PIR with GranitFarm coating - protection class C3, but ammonia resistance class C5, coating 35µm, a very frequently used solution and probably the optimum price/quality solution.
• PIR with thicker coatings - HDS, HDX, FoodSafe, Prisma - with a thickness of 35-120µm - should be selected depending on the requirements of the environment inside the building, but it should be remembered that as the thickness of the coating increases, the cost of such a solution increases significantly.

The features that characterise sandwich panels, as well as the simplicity and speed of installation, mean that this product must always be taken into account when deciding on the construction materials to be used for a pigsty, poultry shed, stable or other livestock facility. This is dictated by both technical and economic considerations.

For help in choosing the right panel and answers to technical questions about installation, visit the Izopanel website or contact the manufacturer's technical department.