Yep! Another greenhouse thread. Mine is similar to (if not the same as?) Pineapple's greenhouse, a simple 6' × 8' aluminum frame polycarbonate panel assemble-at-own-risk-of-constant-frustration kit that came in two boxes from Menard's. I wouldn't have considered getting it right now, but it was on sale with a rebate, so the price was about half what was advertised and my partner split the purchase with me, probably because he wanted to see the windowsills in the house again.
^ We put it up in May 2011 on a wooden footer. Two layers of weed barrier will hopefully keep them at bay. The floor is a narrow path of brick down the middle and gravel everywhere else. Then when I was away at a conference in New Orleans, my better half, Adam, put in an electrical line through conduit from the house. Our town has no residential building code - it was repealed in the 1970s, unfortunately - and he's rewired the whole house so he has a lot of experience, so there was no inspection required for the outdoor circuits. We did, however, have to apply for a permit to put the structure up and it had to be at least 5 feet away from the property lines. So be sure to check your local codes before you put up your own greenhouse, even if it's one of the all-assembly-required kinds from the big box home improvement stores.
^ August 2011! We chose to site it in the back corner of the yard where it will receive afternoon and evening sun. In this spot it is mostly protected from winter winds by the row of forsythia and the fence. The apple tree right next to it may become a problem later, but we'll keep it pruned.
^ We found some cheap heavy-duty shelves that I think were meant for basements and garages, but they work well here.
^ The inside.
^ The succulents were looking nice that day.
^ (October 2011) Heat loss is an issue with the thin polycarbonate panels here in Zone 5b, so I decided to wrap the interior in bubble wrap. You can get a decent amount of this from greenhouse suppliers. It's much tougher than the kind you can buy in office supply stores and the bubbles usually have a larger diameter. I got mine from here (scroll about two-thirds of the way down) along with the adhesive spray to keep it from falling down. Combined with a space heater and thermostat (shaded), the temperature never dropped below 39 °F, which was my goal.
^ Probably our largest snowfall in Ohio this year on 21 January 2012. We had a very mild winter, but even on the coldest nights, the space heater and insulation kept the greenhouse quite warm! The biggest problem I encountered when it snowed was with blowing snow; it got into the track of the door and refroze, preventing me from getting in without an ice pick! The winter was so mild that we didn't really notice any increase in the electric bill with the added usage from the space heater.
In the summer, I keep a thermostat-controlled fan in the open vent and I will remove the insulation from the top. It's too much of a pain to remove it and put it back up on the sides and I don't think it will contribute to overheating too much in the summer. I may have to consider getting a small evaporative cooler for the really hot summer days since the fan just doesn't keep it cool. Shade cloth might help, as well.
I'll be sure to keep this updated.
^ We put it up in May 2011 on a wooden footer. Two layers of weed barrier will hopefully keep them at bay. The floor is a narrow path of brick down the middle and gravel everywhere else. Then when I was away at a conference in New Orleans, my better half, Adam, put in an electrical line through conduit from the house. Our town has no residential building code - it was repealed in the 1970s, unfortunately - and he's rewired the whole house so he has a lot of experience, so there was no inspection required for the outdoor circuits. We did, however, have to apply for a permit to put the structure up and it had to be at least 5 feet away from the property lines. So be sure to check your local codes before you put up your own greenhouse, even if it's one of the all-assembly-required kinds from the big box home improvement stores.
^ August 2011! We chose to site it in the back corner of the yard where it will receive afternoon and evening sun. In this spot it is mostly protected from winter winds by the row of forsythia and the fence. The apple tree right next to it may become a problem later, but we'll keep it pruned.
^ We found some cheap heavy-duty shelves that I think were meant for basements and garages, but they work well here.
^ The inside.
^ The succulents were looking nice that day.
^ (October 2011) Heat loss is an issue with the thin polycarbonate panels here in Zone 5b, so I decided to wrap the interior in bubble wrap. You can get a decent amount of this from greenhouse suppliers. It's much tougher than the kind you can buy in office supply stores and the bubbles usually have a larger diameter. I got mine from here (scroll about two-thirds of the way down) along with the adhesive spray to keep it from falling down. Combined with a space heater and thermostat (shaded), the temperature never dropped below 39 °F, which was my goal.
^ Probably our largest snowfall in Ohio this year on 21 January 2012. We had a very mild winter, but even on the coldest nights, the space heater and insulation kept the greenhouse quite warm! The biggest problem I encountered when it snowed was with blowing snow; it got into the track of the door and refroze, preventing me from getting in without an ice pick! The winter was so mild that we didn't really notice any increase in the electric bill with the added usage from the space heater.
In the summer, I keep a thermostat-controlled fan in the open vent and I will remove the insulation from the top. It's too much of a pain to remove it and put it back up on the sides and I don't think it will contribute to overheating too much in the summer. I may have to consider getting a small evaporative cooler for the really hot summer days since the fan just doesn't keep it cool. Shade cloth might help, as well.
I'll be sure to keep this updated.