Greenhouse: Ice and Sleet!, 0 by digital_dave

digital_dave wrote:
The snow wasn't very bad, maybe 4-6". On closer examination, it seems that the freezing rain and melting from inside caused an ice dam of sorts to form right at the bottom of the poly where it is fastened to the top of the vertical front wall. This would not allow the ice/sleet/snow to slide off. The picture shows what is left this morning. I think some of the snow did slide off overnight. When I first built the GH back in 1979, I had the "rafters" coming all the way down to meet the deck, a serious design flaw. I spent several long nights shoveling snow off the bottom where it had no where to go. The next year I installed a new front wall leaving a gap of two feet for snowfall. In my first picture you can almost see the horizontal steel wires spanning the "rafters," another winter lesson learned.

tigerlily reinforces the point to others, you have to be prepared for the worst - and yes, the GH is far more important that the contents - it would be a disaster if the structure collapsed. A good friend of mine way up in Duluth had his GH buckle under similar conditions and it took him years to recover.

The GH here is wood frame, 27 years old, and subjected to very high humidity inside due to my misting system. The inside layer of poly does provide a shield, however, from the wood actually getting very wet.

(spelling corrected - I are an engineer! and don't type very well either)

This message was edited Dec 1, 2006 8:10 AM

This message was edited Dec 1, 2006 8:11 AM