Adriana, or anyone else who can inject thoughts.

What manufacture of greenhouses do you use, or do you build your own? I am leaning heavily toward building my own because of the huge costs of manufactured greenhouses. I have a background in construction as well and am thinking about buying a steel frame building less sheeting, adding reinforcing X bracing, and then sheeting with double wall polycabonate sheets puchased from a wholesale outlet. Any thoughts are apreciated.

Darrell Panike

Keep an eye on auctions! i bought one last year (253 feet of it) for $400.00 - could have bought 3 or 4 more for the same price, but they had to be off the premises in 2 weeks.

Check with the local schools. Some are changing from a vocational emphasis to a "high tech" curriculum. I bought one of mine complete with HAF fans, evap. cooler, all the vents and exhaust fane, heater and 7 4 x 8 galvanized steel tables for a donation to the PTA and haul it off. Another one I got free for the removal since it was in the way of a remodel. Thereare many skeletons around if one looks long enough. It never hurts to ask about them.

Trav.

Darrel,

In 8 years of growing I have never built a greenhouse; I have always grown in leased greenhouses. I would not recommend that you build your own unless you are planning on a fairly small house, say 20 x 60 or so.. There are a lot of details that greenhouse manufacturers have developed such as frames that don't collect condensation that drips down and destroys the crop below, etc... I am in the process of assembling 18 4' x 25' rolling benches and I probably could not buy the raw materials for the price that I paid for the finished benches. Think twice; you will save yourself a lot of time and headaches if you let the experts build the frame for you. You will have plenty to do erecting, plumbing and equipping it.

A key point in selecting a greenhouse fabricator is location - you do not want to pay to ship steel across the country. If I was to build a greenhouse I would seriously consider one made by Atlas called the RT Muscle with a ridge vent for passive ventilation. This a beautifully built greenhouse with 4" x 4" columns, etc...Check it out at http://www.atlasgreenhouse.com/rt.html (be prepared, the ridge vent costs almost as much as the rest of the greenhouse...) If you want a more "budget greenhouse" go to Farmtek at http://www.farmtek.com

Two other good greenhouse builders - B & K and Caribe, both in Florida.

Whatever you do, don't build it out of lumber - If Paula is reading she can comment on this from the been-there-done-that-won't do-it-again point of view.

After my experience recovering a double-poly 60 x 96' greenhouse this fall, if I was doing it from scratch I also would seriously consider the corrugated Solexx (not Lexan) covering material so that I would not need to do that again for 15 years. http://www.farmwholesaleag.com/greenhouses.htm offers the Solexx material and greenhouses as well.

I don't have a construction background but my husband is an architect and oversees construction of projects in the hundreds of million $ range and he concurs with me on the buy vs. build.

Adriana

Check out http://www.greenhouse-bbs.com/bbs/clasequi.htm Dismantling a greenhouse is a big project...I saw one abandoned after it had been paid for because it turned out to be too big a job. So it is best if it is down already.

I purchased my greenhouse from Harnois. It is there new model Ovaltec 3. I was going to build a bubble greenhouse and worked with the founder Richard Nelson on the project only to find the tecdnology was weak and I did not want to take any more chances than I needed to at the time.

Anyhow, I am not to pleased with my greenhouse; I put it together with 2 friends...the company said " a good 2 weeks to put it up then thay would come and cover the 225' x 40' building...the engeneering plans sucked and we found ourselves still working at -25C on the frame and details of the structue...we finaly got our plastic put up on January 15...a warm day...-12C...everything seemed fine until spring...started getting pillows where the greenhouse bends...this gave rise to drips...tghey came back to stretch the plastic in spring...things seemed fine until their wirelock on the roof tore a 10 foot hole in the plastic and the roof deflated...flapping in the wind...sprinkled my Kirk's antidrip stuff all over my lettuce rendering it unsellable....to wrap up all my anti-drip stuff has vanished, I had to solve the drip problem myself..very serious problem at night when the temperatures dropped, there was puddles on my lettucde rafts and my plants were laying in them...the company kept saying they were not responsible for any crop damage and said it was Klirk's fault.......beware on new models....I am going to court on the 19 of January ........I heat with natural gas.....ouch...just got my bill...$6998 since november 1st.....can't really afford to make any mistakes....

I maintain my temperatures at 16-18C, my greenhouse is fully automated....with opening roof , roll-ups...humidity never goes over rarely goes over 70....I like that....

http://www.cultures-aquaponiques.com/

To give to more info on what Darrell is discussing, There is an example near where i live (i have not visited but did discuss briefly with owners) and there is info available at http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~caffery/greenhouse/index.html The owners are happy with the results after 5 years.
Rob Lak