Kitchen Garden Forum

I've got a cheap-ish aluminium cold frame. Generally pretty happy with it, but...

it is made of glass, with each top window being made of two panes, so there is an aluminium runner across the middle of each top window. This means that heavy rain tends to seep through the runner and drip onto the plants below, and when there is condensation, it runs down to the runner then drips onto the plants below.

Enough water drips down to flood plant trays in the wrong place. I suppose I could apply duck tape which would cut down the seepage, or rig up a pane of plastic glass to deflect drips, but grateful for any other comments or ideas.

cheers - Peter

Hi Peter,why not run a bead of Silicone mastic down the joint, it will stay both flexible and watertight.

Well i was thinking of an answer while i have been digging leeks, parsnip and pulling some carrots and beetroot over the allotment and i came up with the same thought as Beeman2, he just beat me to it.
What would we do without silicone, especially some women for enlarging certain parts.

You mean they use those tubes from Screwfix to attract a mate?

I'm not sure how the ladies do it, but i'm not the biggest fan of the results.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.......

OH has probably seen Mrs Beckham.
Two frozen peas on a twiglet.

Priceless Peter.

Back to the problem after mammary distractions.

Isn't the easiest solution to steepen the angle of the glass?

if it ever dries out, I'll try a run of mastic,

hopefully the condensation is not really flooding the plant trays, and it is probably unlikely to be much of a problem in the near future

cheers

Peter

Dear All,
I had a cold frame made out of Aluminium with no glass and I covered it with some tough sheet plastic. All was well and it worked Ok but two days later it was a cold morning and the frame was full of condensation and therefore the plastic looked white and solid to next door's cat who saw me and jumped down off the wall to say hello and went splat into the top of the lid. She didn't half look surprised when she clawed her way out through the hole. Considering how fat that cat is there was no damage to the plants....
Regards Sally Wright.

My wooden coldframe had the roll it up fledxible style of plastic sheet and it got a bit UV tired, so I re-skinned the lid.
Within a day of it going back on the plot the crows had walked all over it pecking at it. Shredded to uselessness.

Fortunately a vandal threw a sheet of plastic from a BT phonebox over the site fence. 1/2cm thick indestructible plastic, had to cut it down a little on one side and my coldframe is now corporately branded in kevlar(?).

Hi
I have a similar style of cold frame and i took away the middle partition on each 'lid' part and installed a single sheet of clear perspex..it works really well...i'm going to eventually remove all the glass and use a clear polypropylene (plastic) for safety, as i have a toddler.
hope it helps or theres always the mastic.
Tom.