Kitchen Garden Forum

Cleaned out the greenhouse I heat. Removed the perished bubble wrap insulation, always a messy job with flaky bits getting everywhere. Replaced bubble wrap on West and North sides but used 4mm twin walled polycarbonate on the South (with a bubble curtain over the ventilator) with Correx under the permanent gravel staging. Added the temporary wooden staging so ready to go at the end of February.

Afternoon Geoff, a horrible job indeed, but a nice feeling when it's already to go. The anticipation is quite unbearable.....

fabulous work Geoff! I'll probably get round to cleaning mine when the tomatoes have gone to the allotment!

Well done, that looks very tidy.

I always fancied a greenhouse with that roof shape if I bought a stand-alone, have there been any issues Geoff ?

Looks great Geoff - bet you are really itching to get going now!

Westi

Looks great, Geoff. and aren't your fingers itching to started to sow and plant?! When it's sunny , it's so tempting to get stuff started. Looks like quite hard frost tonight and it snowed this afternoon - no doubt, we'll have to wait just a little longer.

A question: I see you have electricity. What sort of heater do you use, Geoff? We have a greenhouse fan heater but I find it's too 'directional', getting some areas very warm and other too cool. So we usually use an oil-filled tubular electric heater to lift the temperature gently. positioning it so the most tender plants are immediately above it. But I don't start using that until about mid-March,

If only mine looked like that. Great job.

Beryl.

Thanks for the kind comments. I probably wouldn't be so ahead of myself if it wasn't so awful outside. Last year I started using the greenhouse on 21st February, this year I am thinking of moving it nearer the end of the month to try and save some electricity, I'm hoping the better insulation will also help. We use about 9Kwh/day (including nearly 2 for the shared borehole) but last March was 23Kwh/day when the greenhouse (and to be fair the propagator with lights) was running during the blizzards. So in answer to Monika, I use an electric fan heater that you can just about make out hanging under the staging. I don't think the integral thermostats are much good so the black plug is the heater going into an external thermostat (not sure it is greenhouse approved but it worked last year after my ancient rod stat gave up) with the heater set on full.
In answer to Richard about the shape. My first greenhouse here was a wooden Alton that I dismantled from my parents garden when my mother died and we sold up. It was demolished by a bad storm but the insurance paid up against an Alton quote and they had gone quite expensive so it was a good settlement. I put some money to it and bought the similarly expensive Hartley Wisley 8x10 in February 1995 which came with a 20 year guarantee and they claimed they had never known storm damage. It has survived many storms unscathed (apart from a crack where a piece of flying debris hit it) which have taken glass out of a 12x16 Elite that I bought for the same price exactly but in 2002. So I would definitely recommend it structurally and functionally but they are now even more expensive.

Thanks for the reply re the heating, Geoff. One more query: with that shape, how do you fare for snow? It must be more difficult to brush the snow off the roof than off a more conventionally sloped roof. I realise that snow is insulating but I am always worried about the weight of it.

I've never bothered to brush the snow off and it has never come to any harm. It is a very strong structure, I guess that is why whey are so expensive, I couldn't afford one now.