Overview of the Greenhouse

The greenhouse is a kit. It is a Rion greenhouse and is 8.5' x 25' (approximately). Despite what the instructions say, it's not that difficult for just one person to build this. On the other hand they make it sound like you can finish this project in one day. Even one of their smaller kits would have taken me more than one day. I did notice the parts didn't always go together as easily as they stated and their instructions are not always that clear. Using their suggested method of installing the glazing was slow! I only got 3 sections done in one day. The next day I used a hammer to tap pieces together so parts would lock in the proper groove. On a warm summer day (upper 80s to low 90s) it worked great. On a cold day the plastic might be brittle so I would use caution using a hammer in cold weather on the plastic.

CONSTRUCTION

Outside view (pavers almost done):

Roof almost up!

Inside view:

Completed

Outside view (outside greenhouse finished/"patio" not finished):

Inside view:

Filled to the rim (almost) and functional for autumn weather:

The vertical 2x4 posts are for electrical conduit and even holding hardware cloth for orchids that are mounted and hang on the wall. The "black thing" hanging on a 2x4 on the right houses my weather station sensors.

Our summers are HOT!!! Given that I grow mainly orchids I went with an Aqua-Fogger for both cooling and controlling humidity. Presently it is in the box and I see no real need to install as temps have definitely cooled down.

I received my heater in this week, but have not installed it. I should be ok to wait until around the end of September before we have any weather that gets to around 50. I've noticed that the temperature inside the greenhouse never quite goes down to the outside temperature so that affords me a few degrees of protection. The heater should be able to heat the space I have while keeping it 50 degrees inside should the outside temperatures fall to the low-teens (we are talking some major BTUs). On very rare occassions will we have single digit or sub-zero weather. I am considering supplementing this with liquid propane which would be necessary anyway should there be a power failure that lasts for any length of time.

I've been looking around for proper wiring to wire my heater, but I'm having no luck. The closest I came was a roll of 100' of 10 guage 3 conductor wire for a lot more than I want to spend when I only need about 10 feet. I was looking on Sears and bought a 6' dryer cord that meets my needs, but I'm not sure if this is what I want to do yet. I hate the idea of going inside the greenhouse fusebox to wire in something like this. Plus there is the distance issue....the dryer cord is only 6' long. Also my original plan was to buy a very flat heater from Charlie's Greenhouse so my initial plans were to install it at the end of the greenhouse with power. The heater I got was cheaper (Greenhouse MEGA Store), but much deeper. So I have to get out the old electric saw and work on making some supports that put some distance between the greenhouse wall and the back of the heater. Something to extend it out 8" to 12" should be just fine. I really hate doing a post add like this, but there's no way around it.

After a disasterous fiasco with Sears to get a 6 foot dryer cord (the store near me is the reason Sears is in deep doodoo), I found a 10 foot dryer cord rated at 30 Amps @ 220VAC. My heater is rated for 23 Amps so it should work without any problems. I've decided to wait until late spring to deal with this and the circuit breaker. If something happened to screw up my current system and we have some really cold weather, I could loose everything.

In the mean time I have a 1500 W oil filled heater out in the greenhouse. On the lowest setting it keeps everything nice & steady at 57 F (three box fans running 24/7). With temps in the mid 40's and such a large space, that seems ok for now. I've found this system to be satisfactory for temps down to about 25 degrees F. We got down to 15 degrees F just before Christmas and everything went down to 45 degrees F. It's been a few days and luckily everything still looks OK. I did have a few blooms that got blasted around the edges (didn't get any photos of them before they got the damage). For me, they still look OK for me to enjoy and leave them on for now.

Davis Weather Station Transmitter (solar powered)

I have a Davis Weather Station that wirelessly uploads greenhouse conditions to my PC and software that uploads that data to this website. A feature I really like is being able to send alarm notices via e-mail if conditions trigger alarms that I set (too hot, too cold, etc.). So far I'm pleased with the results.

I recently purchased a wireless IP webcam that I will be using to monitor the inside of the greenhouse. It took some time, but I finally got the wireless IP webcam online. I had never configured a dynamic DNS service before this. However, due to my ISP (Comcrap) I will not be able to stream the video online due to their rules on streaming live video and their new cap on bandwidth. I'm keeping the URL private so I can check in from time to time. BTW, the camera is a TrendNet TV-IP312. For the price it suits my needs, but as the light goes low it's not the best camera when it comes to color. It does have nightvision so I can check inside the greenhouse at night. One thing I do not like is that it works best with Internet Explorer and uses TrendNet's Active X for displaying the video. At work I am locked out of allowing any non-corporate Active X code from being used so no image. My way around that is to use QuickTime and view streaming video. I'm also having problems getting the FTP and e-mail services of the webcam to operate properly. They act like they can not get past my router so my router settings may need a little tweaking. I would like to use the motion detection to notify me if intruders are detected (uninvited children, vandals, animals, etc.).

I have a cheap little Intel webcam pointed out a window shooting the exterior of the greenhouse. It is fixed focus and gives pretty poor quality shooting through a window screen, but you can see movement even if you can't identify who is there. This camera is also easily blinded by the harsh full sun at the greenhouse and the large amounts of shade between the window and the greenhouse. It results in the most distant part of the image being very washed out with no details. Still this camera was not meant to be used in this way so I can't complain.

The whole environment and video monitoring just makes me feel more comfortable knowing I can check greenhouse environmental conditions (temp & humidity) as well as view the inside and outside in the event of bad weather. In 2009 I may add more cameras for the inside so I can monitor it from time to time as well. It's like a nice little security system.