Friday's Progress, last day of 2010 - Part 8

I made a good start framing up the north wall today, that included setting the door in place. The door looks rather fancy for a greenhouse door, but as they say, looks can be deceiving.
I picked the door up at a local St. Vincent de Paul store a while back specifically for the greenhouse and the price tag is still attached, $15.00! It's a nice metal exterior door still in a frame. It has two little spots of rust that may have looked tacky on a house in the city but the door looks classy on my country greenhouse.

As you can see from the top photo, the fog was dense today, so dense that it was a fine mist at times and I had to wear my wide-brimmed summer straw hat to keep my glasses from misting up. The temperature rose into the 40's and the garage floor was as wet from condensation as it was outside. A lot of the snow cover melted.

The ground became muddy. I decided not to try and build the north wall inside the garage and move it into place with the tractor as I had planned, but rather, I constructed it directly at the greenhouse.

The weather is predicted to change tomorrow and become much colder. One of my brothers (and possibly my friend the slacker, Jason! Ha! Ha!) is planning to come and help me, but we probably won't be able to install the plastic. Wind. I think we may be able to complete the north wall and begin installing the aluminum channels that will hold the plastic in place though.

Even now, I hear the heavy bell wind-chime clanging outside, telling me that the wind is beginning to pick up. Tomorrow is a new day, and a new year... though it is actually already 1:00am January 1st, 2011. Happy New Year!

New Year's Weekend Construction Plans - Part 7

December is ending with more than a foot of snow on the ground, fog over the land, and the greenhouse still not finished. I have finished the metal portion of the structure with three lengthwise stringers bolted in place and most of the scaffolding removed. I made significant progress yesterday when I moved a large wood furnace into the greenhouse. I know, that's not how a subterranean heated greenhouse is supposed to be heated, but I assume by now I may have significant underground freezing in the labyrinth of underground pipes. I may need some additional heat for a few weeks after the greenhouse is covered to thaw things out, so I moved the wood furnace in place before finishing the north wall. Once the structure is covered and the fans are in place and operating, I plan to fire up the furnace to expedite unthawing the soil inside and the subterranean heating system.


Moving the furnace has been a chore in itself. It was in an old building, difficult to access, and the furnace weighs perhaps 600lbs. I used the front-end loader of the tractor with a 4x4 chained to the bucket to lift the heavy heater and carry it to the greenhouse. The furnace is shielded and will have additional duct work attached that will circulate when the subterranean fan turns on.
The weather today and tomorrow is predicted to be much warmer than it has been, in the 30's and 40's, and even though it may rain, I hope to complete the north wall on Friday and Saturday along with the aluminum rails for attaching the double plastic cover. After that, I'll have to wait for a calm day without wind to put the plastic covers on. After that, I can begin to work inside installing the fans and it should actually warm up during the day to make the work more pleasant.

My four-day New-Year Weekend will be a busy weekend. My goal is to have the cover in place or at least ready to be installed on the first day appropriate for the task in 2011. Today is my last (scheduled) work-day for 2010 and I may get out 4 hours early using the last of my vacation time. Hopefully I'll have progress to report on the north wall by tomorrow night and enough energy to blog progress...

Delays - Part 6

Five weeks have passed since my last update to this blog and progress on the greenhouse has been slow. It took more time than I thought to complete the backfill and sometimes rain, or muddy conditions after the rain, made it impossible to work. Then things began to freeze and now they are blanketed under 6 inches of snow. Still, I think I will be able to complete the project before Christmas, and maybe if I augment with some wood heat, have it thawed out sometime in January.

I had to work for 17-days strait at my day job, and that really tired me out and delayed the work on the greenhouse, but I needed to make money too. With only two days off and another 8-days to work, I'll finally have a 4-day weekend starting Friday, then maybe I'll be able to write about some progress.

Besides working out in the cold, the backfilled frozen lumpy ground made it nearly impossible to place ladders for installing the three stringers that will run end to end in the structure. A few days ago, I thought of setting up some gates from a horse arena inside the greenhouse and then placing large flat sheets of wood on top of those gates to serve as a scaffolding. It worked great. Six feet off the ground I am able to work at the height I need to be to install the stringers. In a few hours I had the first stringer bolted in place. I have two more to go and then I'll start on the north end with the doorway. I'll build that end in the garage and move it into place on the greenhouse with the tractor's front end loader.

Snow fell over the last two days and that will complicate the project even more, but I intend to keep trying. Hopefully, the cover will be on before Christmas!

The thermostat apparatus has been completed for the fan controllers. A friend built that for me for the cost of materials, about $80. It's made to plug into a electrical current source and then in turn have the main circulation fan plugged into the outlet mounted to the bottom of the box. Two thermostats, one for temperatures above the high setting (around 80 degrees) the other for when the temperature drops below the low setting (around 60 degrees) will operate relays that in turn will power the outlet that the circulation fan is plugged into. It's designed to be portable rather than a stationary mount. This allowed my friend to build the unit at his place rather than have to come out and hard wire the apparatus in my greenhouse.

The wires attaching the two thermostats are short but will be replaced with longer wires once the thing is set up in the greenhouse. I'll mount the 'high' temperature thermostat up near the ceiling because that's the intake air will come from. The second thermostat will be mounted lower at about table level. That one will turn the fan on when heat is needed at night.