Ice and Sleet!

I just spent an hour removing a 3-4" buildup of frozen precip off the greenhouse. Fortunately we just recovered it with new poly just a week ago. It's been falling freezing rain and sleet for hours. The blurry picture (taken in the dark with the sleet still coming down) shows the ice cleared up about half the way. The weight must have been immense. We've had big snow events but in the past it has always slid off by itself. I don't know why it stuck so much but it may be due to the freezing rain that started this afternoon.. We're supposed to have 2-3 more hours of sleet followed by snow tomorrow.

I tested my generator last weekend and I've got 15 gallons of gas in cans. Also two kerosene heaters standing by. I am a retired Electrical Engineer for the local utility (28 years) and we live quite close to the substation. ...and I know who to call for information.

What a way to start Winter!
Dave.

Hi Dave! We have the same nasty weather. Here we're supposed to get 8-18" of snow depending on who you ask and when. So far we have only sleet.

I've been checking on the greenhouse and the tropicals are happy so far.

SB

lol SB, its not your tropicals that you want happy right now...its your grhouse! I have heard of many a grhouse collapsing under the weight of snow and ice. No matter how high you turn up your heat, at some point the heat melting the snow can't keep up with the accumulation of snow. Sounds like this is the wet type-heavier and slower to melt.
I remember one time the weather forecast was for a "light dusting of snow". Well it wasn't...first we got 2" of solid ice about 8pm, then the snow started. At 10, I went out to the grhouses in my pj's and a jacket-no gloves or hat-just to check on things, and ended up staying out there for 3 hrs trying to get the snow off 3 grhouses. Went back out again at 2am to do it all over again-but with gloves this time! Full on blizzard-wind blowing like crazy and the snow just falling like rain! Once more at 7 am and then the snow stopped...we ended up with 20"....this is why, when I hear snow in the forecast, I shudder lol
That 20" shut Raleigh down for almost 10 days-no school, no mail...it was the ice at the bottom that made it last so long, kept freezing at night.

Everyone should have a good idea of how much weight their grhouse can handle-I start removing it after 2" accumulation. If you hear that snow is in the forecast-turn up the heat in the grhouse well before the snow starts to fall, so the temps can start to melt the snow as soon as it hits-if you wait, it may not help.
Have a way figured out to get the snow off before it comes. If you lose water if you lose electricity-keep some 5 gallon buckets filled with water in the grhouse to water with

Anyone have a good way to remove the snow? I am always looking for easier ways to remove it....

Thanks, TL, but I'm not that worried about my GH. When I bought I upgraded to 30#/sq ft snow load to account not only for snow but for the weight of hanging baskets. My GH roof is strong enough for me to walk on and with tempered glass, I feel pretty safe.

Dave, to me this snow looks very light and fluffy. We have lots of drifts. I-70 is closed in spots due to drifting snow. We have about 12" of snow on the ground but only 4-6" on the greenhouse.

What's your snow like this morning?

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

The temperature here is 1*, the sun is shinning, we received about a foot of snow, my green house temp is 58* inside. My DH did swept the snow off yesterday, but at the rate it was snowing it didn't take it long to cover again. He told me when he gets home around noon he would swept it off again. We have a vent running from the house to my GH for extra heat. There is a Black & Decker electric heater in there and seems to be doing a good job. So as long as the electric doesn't go off I am good to go. I have a good friend that has a generator that I can use if the electric goes off, but if it goes off in the night I am dead. Or should I say my plants are dead. Right now I have three Brugs that are blooming and many Hibiscus blooming. There are also EE's, banana plants, and a rice paper plant that I would hate to loose. But from the picture it doesn't look like there is to much snow on the GH so maybe with the sun shinning it won't be long before it melts itself off.

My DH just used a broom to swept the GH off yesterday.

I forgot to mention that our GH sets close to the house blocking off the north wind. That is a big PLUS for me.

Have faith in the electric company! They really are good guys. The line workers go out in horrible conditions to restore service in a very dangerous job under normal conditions.

I just came in from the GH and it's 90 degrees in there and all the ice and snow is melted off. As you might expect, after a big storm it is as clear as could be and the sun reigns supreme once again. The fan will be on shortly, but not for very long. We're forecasted for single digits tonite too.

2pugdogs, can you reverse the airflow in your vent pipe on sunny days? It's always nice to recoup some of that excess heat in the house when you would otherwise have to use more energy for house heating at the same time your're using fan energy to vent the GH.

I wish I could have built attached to the house here, but alas the house faces south and there is a pool in the way. I have been thinking of a wild idea to convert the inground pool into a GH and use the bottom deep end for water storage. ?!?!?!
What do you think SB?

Dave, it is an idea with some merit. You would have large ground source of heat there.

We have actually discussed this before on another forum. There are some technical challenges. The hydrostatic pressure that can build underneath a pool is considerable. Empty concrete pools can actually lift out of the ground and float like a boat. Hydrostatic relief valves or a dry well with a sump pump could solve that problem.

Then you would also have to deal with the water in the pool. Would you seal it off? Circulate it? I'd probably seal off the majority of that water, then have some smaller containers in which I'd collect rainwater for plant use.

Let's say the shallow end is 3' - a tall knee wall, essentially. You could build a "floor" like a deck across the entire pool at this level.

Well, I have no pictures but the big wind we had here took about 5 panels out of my HF greenhouse. I had them securedonly with the clips that came. I am thinking it might have been ok but the kidlet had left the gh door open that last time she was in there and I hadnt' noticed. It was on the side that the 65 mph gusts were coming from.
Good news is that I found all the panels and they are still useable, one is cracked on the edge but intact. Bad news is that it's colder than snot outside so I haven't gotten it back together.

Jazz I sure hope you didn't have anything in the GH. Because snot is pretty darn cold and I hate to think you lost it all.

Last night I checked my inside gauge for the temp. reading in the GH and it was registering 32* I just about pottyed my pants. Then I happen to notice it was on the wrong channel and I flipped it back to channel 1 and the reading was at 49*, boy did I feel better. I told my DH at 32* I know I have lost everything, and I wasn't going to check it out until morning. But TG I discovered what the problem was.

No plants. The garden is about 150 feet from the nearest outlet and I manily want to use it for starting seeds. So other than some empty pots and old cherry tomatoes it's empty.. thankfully!

Whew.. glad you figured out what was wrong with the reading! I would have cried!

When I first read it I went in and fell into my recliner, thinking how could that have happened, cause I have a electric heater in there and it gets heat from the house, then I pulled myself together went in and checked it again, and noticed it read it was on channel 2. So I hit the channel button and put it on 1 and then it read 49*, I was doing the happy dance. I got my GH last year so I could keep all my Hibiscus in it. There is times I worry about it and what the cost is going to run me. But so far it is working out really will, and the cost hasn't been that bad. The same time we got the GH we installed a wood burning stove in the house, and we use that heat during the day, and the furnace during the night. Believe it or not last year our heating bill was down compared to the year before, hope it works that way again this year. But if I had to go out and replace all the plants in the GH that would really cost a pretty penny.

That must have been an awful feeling!! Glad that it wasn't true!!!

Well the sun is shining today and it's supposed to get up to 46 ( hearing the song "We're having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave... lalala)

Anyway!! I am going to try to get out and put the panels back on the GH today. DH's comment was.. Now I see why people silicone the panels into place!.. lol.. I may have to rethink that decision next spring. It got so hot in there i figured sealing it would make it even hotter. But.. I also was pondering getting some heavier duty poly for the walls and didn't want to have to "unseal" it to replace.. We shall see.. can you cut poly on a table saw?

OK,, panels back in. didn't find all the clips but Dh says there are extras in the garage. SO as soon as my ears thaw I am headed back out. The sun disappeared and clouds are rolling in so I figure that this is as warm as it's getting today.. wind kicking up... grr.. thinking of ducktaping the whole thing til spring! LOL

Jazz have you read the HFGH thread over on GW? There is an awful lot of really good advice on making the HFGH stronger so it doesn't blow apart on you.

MollyD

No I don't go to gw.. I am a member but never really posted..off to look

Edited to say that I went and looked but really only found comments on the 10x12 which is known to be flimsier.. The idea of running screws in to hold the panels doesn't sounds too bad but I have some concerns about it tearing through. there isn't a very wide overlap. I will ask DH since he is my work guy. I say.. this needs fixed and he figures out a way to do it

eventually ... lol

This message was edited Dec 6, 2006 10:30 AM

Jazz,

Read this thread:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/strucs/msg0420492726342.html

The heading says 10 x 12 but there is info on the 6 x 8 further down.

Also here about halfway down the page:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/strucs/msg031936451540.html

This is a good one too:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/strucs/msg0220164716982.html

here's one being put together:
http://lowtechwebs.com/hf/greenhouse.htm


Hope these links are useful for you,
MollyD

Thanks Molly, I did find some more threads and copied someof the info.. just wish I had done it before the temps dropped

The 6 x 8 seems to have a better frame than the 10 x 12 so I would hazard a guess that being unfinished was probably why yours failed. From what I have read on the HFGH even for those little ones the guys are recommending the caulking and the screws to keep the panels from bowing out. Caulk isn't impossible to remove if you are moving later on. Of course the HFGH is so light maybe you could just lift it onto a truck in one piece to move it. Would save you a lot of work!
Good Luck.

MollyD

Hope you guys got warmer. I was about to tell you that you probably got the one we did over a week ago and it is still in the low 20s. Never got above freezing. We still have the 15 inches of snow we initially got and it is still powder. Hard to believe. No humidity in the air at all.

But was glad to see you were expecting to get into the 40s.

Jeanette

For this time of year it's been very mild for us. Temps have climbed into the 50's then back to the 20's. Yesterday was very mild in the 40's but this morning it was 30 and expected to drop to the single digits by noon with windchills below 0. I just ran out of propane so only the electric heater is running in there. We'll go out this morning and get two 20# cylinders filled.
Over on GW someone said they were getting a month off a 30# tank of propane in a zone 5. I find this very hard to accept. Is anyone else getting this kind of results with propane? The best I can do is about 4 days on low.

MollyD

Molly, if you are only getting 4 days-have you considered getting a larger tank? Propane companies will put it in for free and come fill it once a month. Makes it a lot easier-esp if you get hit with bad weather and don't/can't get out to fill it.

Hi Tiger Lily,

I had considered that since we already have a large propane tank on the property which is hooked up to our furnace but I'm hoping to find an alternative fuel source for next year. Propane is very expensive.
So far the electric heater hasn't been too painful to run but if there is a power failure (and they do happen here in winter) I wouldn't want to depend on that heat source alone.
I was just wondering if others were getting better milage from their propane heaters than I was.
Today it's dropped to 19 degrees outside (3pm) and it's 59 in the GH.

MollyD

I have a shade cloth on my GH. If we ever get a lot of snow, we go out, take off the bungee cords and pull the shade cloth off. That way all the snow comes off with it. You need at least 2 people to do this. That snow gets very heavy. Good luck. Wish we would get some rain here in TN, but not the snow. We are in drought conditions. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. LIZ

Shade cloths and snow didn't mix for me. Here's a pic of the cloth after a freaky March snow in 2000. It was old and probably ready to be replaced anyway.

I turned on the water a bit to keep the pipes from freezing. One water spigot was hooked up to a mister. This morning the mist had turned to a sheet of ice. Still frozen this afternoon.
18 degrees. Not usual for Zone 8. I thought we had "global warming"!