Greenhouse: Heating G'house with Kerosene heater?, 0 by JeaneTH

JeaneTH wrote:
I've been using a kerosene heater for several years now. Really want to switch to wood eventually. But this winter has been extremely cold. I have found that while many plants do handle it OK, certain plants (tomatoes and lettuce in particular) are effected by the fumes. The foilage of sensitive plants can look diseased. I start my tomatoes in the house so usually by the time I move them to the greenhouse I'm done with the kerosene and just using a little 'milkhouse' electric heater overnight. The electric heater along with heating pads under some of my flats works great until we get below 20degrees at night. This winter has been something else! Colder than I've seen it here in years.

I have a stock tank that I fill with water and winter my goldfish in that's set in the middle of the greenhouse with a filter and fountain head for aeration. I also keep a large garbage can for watering in there so I'm not hauling water every day. Water really is the best heat sink. In a previous greenhouse I had collected milk bottles from all my friends and neighbors (you need quite a lot, think I had something approaching 300), filled them with colored water (blue or green food coloring) and placed them under all my benches along the outside walls. It did make a difference. There's a formula online somewhere to figure out how many gallons you need per square foot. 3.5 comes to mind. But it's been along time. Try googleing it. Someone a few years ago on this forum did a trial and found that painting the milk bottles black helps.