6-week update on my experimental insulation project

In the "Orchid" GH, I have four fans, two box fans, low at each end, and two oscillating fans, high at each end. During the fall/winter months they are set to come on at 9:00 AM and go off at 3:00 PM. During our spring/summer/early fall months, they are on from 7:00 AM until 6:00 PM. I have three fans in my "Everything Else" GH, on the same schedule.

My lean-to has a high, auto-louvered vent at one end and six vents spaced out at the base of the GH. The free-standing GH has a manual vent on the roof. During the winter months I keep those six base vents closed. During the warm months they all stay fully open. I also open my doors on each GH when the temperature gets into the 50's, closing them at night when the temperatures fall back. I also open the manual vent when the temperature gets into the 50's. It does not matter whether there is shade cloth or solar wrap over the vents. The vents, auto and manual, easily open since the material is flexible enough to allow their opening.

My fans do the primary work of moving air, not the vents, not the open doors. That is something I can and do control. Compared to my electric heaters, all the fans use practically no electricity.

That sounds like you have good air circulation going there. I have a 12 inch fan mounted up high and a 9 inch mounted low on the opposite end to eliminate hot and cold spots I also have a louvered exhaust fan on that same end that kicks on at 80* in the winter and 75* during the warmer months. I am considering installing a louvered vent on the floor level on the other end, that will open when the fan kicks on. Baby steps... when it comes to installing new equipment. I am hoping to be able to sell some plants this Spring to help offset the cost of running this thing all winter. Wish me luck with that!

My four box fans (2 in each GH) are 24" ones, and during the cool/cold months they run on low. During the warm/hot months I will run them on medium or high, depending on whether they blow directly on plants or not. My three oscillating fans are all 18" and run on low in the cold months and medium in hot months. I will manually change the fans' speed if the temperatures vary from the norm.

What sort of plants are you hoping to sell? Have you established how you want to market them?

Ken

Probably tomatoes,peppers,perennials,herbs, whatever looks good by the time the weather is good. We have a local farmer's market or I can sell them from home, if I am ever there, lol.

Got it. Good luck. Hopefully, the weather will finally get more spring-like!

Ken

I might sell some of my tropical plants. I have Banana trees, passionflower vine.Cannas, Elephant ears, Hyacinth bean vine
Also some daylillies, no telling what I'll have by then, lol. When the plants start popping up I will pot whatever needs to be moved and sell them if I have no place in the flower beds for them. Sounds like I better get busy!!!

I can assure you, when you start down that "business" road, it can be as wide and as long as you want it to be. It is all I can do to keep up with my tiny business. It can be fun and it can lead to new friendships, but at times it can be awfully frustrating. I just take the good (most) with the bad (little).

Ken

I work a full time job so it has to be after I get off in the evening and on weekends, unless I can talk a family member into baby sitting the greenhouse while I am at work.....slight pause.....no volunteers. Every one gets really busy whenever I bring it up, lol
My family owned a glass greenhouse and flower shop when I was growing up, so I guess it is hereditary in a way. I have always enjoyed growing things and puttering around in the greenhouse.
So you sell plants? what are you growin' down there in MS?

Tropical plants and in late spring, I will sell gourmet garlic and (possibly) a few heirloom vegetables. I grow the vegetables that my wife and I like and sell what I can't plant. Typically the vegetables will then be in 1 gal. pots and ready to plant. I sell the garlic by the pound. I sent you an email since the DG power-that-be don't want me even hinting about my tropical plant business. I get lashes if I get out of line. LOL

Ken

Oh dear!I don't want to get you into any more trouble.. I have already been called down for posting on the wrong thread! So I can sympathize with you there. I don't blame you for wanting avoid that! So I will not ask questions about it on "the thread". I will stick to greenhouse stuff. Speaking of which, I have had a outbreak of aphids recently. The little buggers are getting on my nerves! have you had any issues with them and what works the best to get rid of them. I am trying to keep it organic. I even ordered ladybugs, but they are escape artists and can find their way out of any little crack or crevice. So I am not sure if there are enough left to be an effective deterrent.

Annette

I use a really great product that seems to be a real killer when it comes to aphids and white flies. It is 100% non-toxic and used no chemicals whatsoever. The plants are attracted to it because of its yellow color and then stick to it whenever they touch it. I need to take some pics of several of these that are just loaded with insects. I have only had these up for 4 weeks and they have already "captured" hundreds of insects. Now I can't ID the insects on these sticky-sheets, but I suspect they are what the sheets are supposed to attract, white flies and aphids. I am sure that there are mosquitoes and gnats there too.

Lady bugs are a waste of time and money. They are more gimmick than solution. They just won't stay where you need them. As you have noted, they are really great escape artists!

Ken

Howdy Ken,
Since you are a bit of a Do it yourselfer, you might find this interesting,

http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/11658/diy-heat-mat-speeds-seed-starting.

I made two of these little outfits today, one for myself and one for my mother. Piece of cake! I don't know if you have a need for a heat mat, but if you do, this is cheaper, but supposedly just as effective, as a commercial heat mat. And you get to use your power tools to make it! lol Here is a picture of my finished product. Maybe somebody should put a patent on it?

Annette

That is a great idea. I can do this! Also, one could change the thickness of those wood strips, thus increasing/decreasing the heat on the bottom of the pots/trays. This will be one of my summer projects. Heck, I can make several that will be the entire length/width of some of my greenhouse shelves. I bet this would work well with my orchid plants as well, particularly my "baby" ones.

P. S. What makes you think I am a DIY person? LOL

Ken

Ken,
You sound lot like me, when talking about your greenhouse and the way it is set up. So you sound capable of doing a project or two. When it comes to growing things you have got to have a little bit of "mad scientist" in you. I thought you might be able to use this for your tropicals or whatever.
And it sure is more economical if you can do it yourself. And besides this was easy. Like you said, you can adjust the length to suit your needs, I suppose. You just have to do the math and figure how many sets of light are needed for the size you want. I am about to try mine out with tomatoes and peppers.
Have a great Day!
Annette

There are sites that sell those rope lights by the foot. I can order them practically any length I want to, so that solves having to plug several length together. There is no practical way to water-proof where they would be plugged into each other. One length of lights is the best way to go about what I would do. My shelves are 8-10' long and either 12 or 18" wide.

Ken

See I told you, you are dyi kind of guy. lol. Although the sets that connect together have a rubber gasket and are pretty weather tight. But If you can get them the length you want, it works for me. You won't have the connecters in the way. I already had the lights from last year (after Christmas clearance) so I used what I had on hand.

Annette

I have now removed the solar blanket material from the top and the sides of both greenhouses. Solar blanket remains on the two ends, including the door(s) end. I have used 50% shade cloth on the lean-to ("Orchid") greenhouse and 70% on the free-standing ("Everything Else") greenhouse. The greenhouses will soon be mostly emptied, putting the plants under large oak and cedar trees, where they will remain until fall. About the only plants that I will leave in the "Orchid" greenhouse will be a couple of hundred "baby" orchids. I will use the "Everything Else" greenhouse for starting seeds and roots plants, mainly plumeria.

Now where did you get that solar blanket? coming time. I'm adding glass over top my black stock tank to help keep tilapia warm without a heater as long as possible, and the water will be piped out of the tank onto aquaponic vegetable trays. Going to paint the back wall (garage wall) chocolate brown for better heat absorption in winter. In summer I put a white plastic panel on the roof to keep the sun out anyway.

Gypsi, I ordered mine online on Ebay from savemoreonpoolsupplies , they offered free shipping and the best overall price. I use it for insulation inside my greenhouse. But many pool supply companies have them. Just shop around for the best deal.

was yours the 12 mil Nanny23?

This is what I ordered: It will cover the roof and come down at least 3 or 4 feet on all sides. My greatest heat loss is the top. Wish I could have afforded a bigger one but it was NOT in the bank at the moment.

This message was edited Oct 29, 2014 10:10 PM

yes it is 12 mil , but that is pretty thick. I had to order 2 12x32 ft blankets @ $73.99 to get enough to completely cover the inside of my 8x24 ft greenhouse. But it was about the same as what I paid for two rolls of 1" bubble wrap 3'x100'. It took about 1 1/2 rolls to do it with the bubble wrap. It lasted 3 yrs. But I figure the pool cover will last quite a bit longer, so it will save some money in the long run. And there is quite a bit of difference in the amount of heat retention. I had a really hard time keeping the temps regulated on cold cloudy days and at night when the temps plummeted. Using the heavier cover has helped. So I think it will pay for it's self in the long run. Ken asked me why I chose to put it on the inside rather than over the top on the outside, I wanted to still be able to use the automatic vents to control the heat on sunny days. It heats up quick when the sun pops up. I hope you have good luck with winterizing your greenhouse. Last winter it was a real struggle to keep mine warm because of the horrible cold we had. I sure hope this winter is milder.

I cover my two GH's with 16 mil solar blanket material but cover the outside, as Nanny pointed out. I have no problem with my auto-vents or manual vents. They just push the solar blanket material outward as they open. I guess I could easily have simply cut out the areas where there are vents, but I just haven't seen the need to do so. I have been impressed with the heat retention that this material affords and I opted for the heavier material so that I would get maximum insulation value.

Ken

Mine is going on the outside, it would be extremely difficult to mount to the inside. Because I have huge windows and a screen door instead of vents, I'm not going all the way down to ground level with mine. The bottom 3 feet of my greenhouse, 4 ft in some places, is plywood and framing, and I am adding owens corning pink and a vapor barrier of contractor's trashbag overlaid and stapled between the rafters. Also putting owens corning pink covered with heavy black plastic around my stock tank full of tilapia. Cost a lot to heat that tank last year.

The heat bills last year were awful! I have considered Covering mine on the outside as well, But I would need a cover large enough to go to the floor on both sides to be effective. And the decreased amount of Sunlight might not be enough to keep my plants thriving. So when you throw in the cost versus the dozen other factors, it is hard to say whether it is the best choice or not. I will continue to mull it over.

My greenhouse faces south, is mounted to the south wall of my garage so totally protected from north wind, gets maximum sunlight once tree leaves drop (fenceline stuff has sprung up and needs removed actually. I bought some aquarium lights for planted tanks on the cheap, have made a place to hang them over the aquaponic plants, as that back wall needs more sunlight than it will get. I only heated the stock tank with the fish for about a month, I think it cost me close to $80 for that month, so I pulled the heater and the warm water fish in the house and dropped in some fish that would tolerate cold weather, clustered plants against the back of the garage and on really cold nights did a load of laundry. I vented my dryer into the greenhouse.

Hoping not to have to use the dryer this year, and hoping to keep the fish outside all winter.
Last night it got to 34 outside, house dropped from 73 to 67 (checking insulation and new windows impact) greenhouse got to 42, but condensation on glass lid of stock tank, fish should be fine. I did not put a heater in them. My solar pool wrap should come in on Tuesday, last night was the coldest we will get til then. Going to clear the leaves off the roof so the sun can heat things up today.

I LOVE the solar pool blanket. Doing a beautiful job at keeping my greenhouse warm and damp. it froze here last night, not heating greenhouse, temp in it at 9:30 this morning with sun barely out was 52. Don't know what it dropped to but warmer than before I can tell. I was seeing maybe a 6 degree difference to outside temp before adding the blanket.

Nany, the Solar Blankets transmit a great deal of light but not enough to sunburn tender plants, such as orchids. I have two different kinds, though both are 16 mil thick, and the truly clear one transmits the most light. The other material, which is actually more expensive, has an aluminum-like color but is supposed to transmit more heat into the pool (OK, I use it off-label!). I don't know that I can really tell the difference though. Not only do I grow hundreds of tropical plants in my two greenhouses, I also start dozens of vegetable seedlings in one of those greenhouses, and the seedlings do very well. I would not be concerned about light transmission.

Ken

well we are never this cold for this long in North Texas, but the sun did come out today and greenhouse temp got up to about 57. Outdoor temp got up to about 41. I am heating the tilapia tank, and I tossed a couple of tomato plant pots roots and all in the tank with the fish, glass lids on the tank, and I topped it off will fairly warm water on Sunday, as evaporative loss had dropped it a lot. (there is an aerating pump in it and the warm water condenses out) So far I adore the solar pool blanket. My green house had a lot of flaws and the blanket is handling most of them.

Thanks Ken for the input. We had a record low of 14 for this time of year. I was able to keep the greenhouse around 50 degrees with the electric heaters going, which is pretty good considering we had winds of about 15mph. I did not use the kerosene heater, just the oil filled electric heaters. I like the soft heat, I think it is better for the plants. I do have two fans running on, one on each end of the greenhouse to help circulate the heat and minimize cold spots. I have been very pleased with the overall results of the installation of my solar pool cover so far. There are still a few tweaks that need to be made, but like yours ,this is an experimental project and that is to be expected. Before I put the solar blanket in there was no way I could keep the temps up to 50 without using Kerosene Heat. It is so expensive to run, and I don't like having a "fire" in the greenhouse unattended, unless absolutely necessary.

Your experiences are similar to mine. Your running those fans is a big deal, believe me. I actually have all four of my heaters (two in each GH) paired with a fan that is beside or behind the heaters. When the heater comes on, the fan comes on.

Ken

Mine stayed at 40 with no heater except the one inside the stock tank with the fish. Everythingin mine, except the fish, can tolerate night time temps of 40 so it is all good. I could not have done that without the solar blanket, got down to 20 last night

Current events: I will run some hot water into the tank with the tilapia tomorrow afternoon when the temp starts dropping, and I will plug their heater back in. Got some expanded shale in trays, need to get some biological filter in that water but for now fish seem to be unhappy but ok. they are not eating, seeing a trace of nitrite, but a couple of weeks of crowding no filtration will do that. They are alive

Hi, I realize this is a really old thread, but I hope someone can chime in! I just got a portable greenhouse. More exact- it's a 10' x 7' poly tunnel, very lightweight. I live in a mild climate (San Francisco bay area), but I want to grow tomatoes, peppers, strawberries and a few others through the winter and will need to keep poly tunnel warm enough to do so. It provides zero insulation as is. I was going to do the bubble wrap, but then I saw a solar pool cover and thought it would be perfect. That led me to this thread. I'd like to know if anyone has tried using the solar pool cover on a lightweight pop up greenhouse. From what I can tell, the pool covers weight 30+ lbs. and I'm not sure that my sad little polytunnel frame could handle the weight.
Thoughts?? I also need it to be leakproof because I've put in a couple grow lights that I power with a solar generator. I want this to be a totally off the grid winter food tent!

I have done it. I had better success with the pool cover over the top of my greenhouse and tacked to the sides, but mine is framed with 2x4, and the bottom 2 feet are plywood walls, then clear pvc and windows of course.

I have run short on help to help me get the cover on the outside so now am tacking it to the interior roof edge at the top and draping down over the windows on the inside. I had to discontinue clear roof anyway, 2 hail storms convinced me clear pvc wasn't up to the job, so I got the solid heavier waffle roofing, and dropped some one inch styrofoam insulation about 6 inches under the roof and up against the solar pool cover.

In other words be creative. Pool cover is definitely leak proof but definitely heavy, plan on reinforcing your frame

I use bubble wrap over waffle panels on the shed roof exterior only. Packing tape seams turn the strips into a blanket that is held down with large office clips. My gh wall panels are also waffle exterior with a 6ml. gh plastic double wall afixed to 1"x3" frames that are removable. So pretty light. This has been an evolution. The gh is on a deck with two layers of outdoor carpet over 6ml plastic. I grow orchids so no soil is involved. Temps stay above fifty on the coldest nights (teens) with two small cube heaters on thermostats.

The sun and wind destroy my bubble wrap long before I stop needing it. I would tape it to the interior on mine if I used it