value of used greenhouse?

A local retail nursery is selling a used greenhouse, about 10 years old, galvanized steel, approx. 12 X 24 and is high enough to hang baskets in it. The straight sides use rigid plastic, which is included. The hoop top uses soft plastic which we would have to buy. Some of the galvanized steel is a little rusty where pipes insert into each other. We would also have to build the end walls and buy a door. I don't think that there is any ventilation included. He bought a new greenhouse because he wanted a larger one. What is a fair price for this? We want to use it as a cold frame. He told me that he would call me with a price on Monday. Any advice?

Since it is missing several parts and it will cost you some money to replace many items, I would say that you will take it down and haul it away for free!! Then there is the age of it "Ten yrs. old". You are doing him a big favor. :-)

Good luck,
Donna

I agree with Donna! Ten years old is fairly old.
Carol

As a guide, the last one we bought was a 22 x 40. It cost $3800.00 new. (I called the company & priced a new one.) The people wanted $1000.00. We had to take it down. We were able to salvage parts of the ends. A nice door frame piece & door & screen door we took as one piece & reused it as is. There was no salvage on the covering, it was very old.
They let us use their bobcat tractor to pull out the ground stakes.
You can't be to picky on price, because used greenhouses don't come along very often.
Good Luck,
Bernie

They are already taken down. There are actually two of them, one is much older than 10 years old and that one has a lot of wood in the structure. I told him that I am more interested in in the newer one. He said that he would use parts of the old GH in his newer ones. Both GHs are in one pile so I don't know how we would differentiate between the two. I think he's going to ask a pretty penny for it. Hopefully, he calls me today.

If the price gets to high, you would probably be better off buying new. There might be important parts missing in this pile.
Must be an awfully small operation if he only had a 12x24 house.

These two greenhouses were used for retail sales. They housed some annuals and hanging baskets which was next to his displays of perennials. He has larger GHs in the back which the public doesn't have access to. Its actually a pretty good sized nursery and has been there for decades. He didn't call me today. :( If his price is too high, I found a hoophouse (new) I think it was 12 or 15 wide and 48 feet long, only 7 foot high though and will be under $500 delivered. This includes stakes, poly, hoops, and 1 purlin. We'll have to build the end walls and buy a door. We plan on stripping the topsoil and replacing the topsoil with gravel. (The topsoil is probably a foot deep where we want to put it.) Does this sound like a good plan? Should we lay down landscape fabric before we spread the gravel?

Where did you find something like that ? I could use a couple. You don't need a high roof, it's just more area to heat.
Bernie

I would go for the new grhouse. The fact that the two old ones are in the same pile sounds like a nightmare to me-trying to sort out what goes with what grhouse.
I think your biggest concern-since you say that you want this as a cold frame-is keeping snow off of it during the winter months. I think that you want more than one purlin for stability and strength. Also the higher the grhouse, the harder it is to get the snow off the top. You can add your own purlins to the hoophouse by going to Home Depot and picking up some EMT and connectors and making your own-its just a straight line that you are making.

What is EMT? We don't plan on keeping plastic on it during the winter. We plan on buying the cheap plastic and tearing it off in the fall. I talked to some technical people at the GH distributor and that is what he suggested. If you want the name of that company, I'll post it as soon as I remember to copy it down. My notes are at work. The greenhouse will be on top of a hill where its super windy, especially during the winter months. This hill is on the opposite hill from a ski resort, so you know it gets a lot of snow! Plus the lake winds are a-blowin' up there. The drifting is out of hand at times. I was up there for a weekend watching the horses when my friend was out of town. I stayed up there all weekend because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to get back up the hill to take care of the horses. I was digging out the barn doors every few hours, the garage door to stoke the coal burner which heats the barn, plus the driveway had snow that was up past my knees at times. (Twice, the snow fell on my head when I was trying to get the doors open, once it went down my back. Pleasant, NOT! ) It was hell and I swore that I would never live on a hill after that weekend! After that weekend, I realized that I didn't want to deal with digging out a GH and cleaning it off along with all of the other digging that needs to be done.

Cheap plastic won't last the summer. Greenhouse plastic has a UV inhibitor in it to make the plastic last. If you use good stuff, you could take it off in the fall & put in on again in the spring. It will last for years. We have some that's been on year around for at least 6 years.
There are different kinds of fasteners you can use. One is called wiggle wire. Most companies use that. You put a strip one the greenhouse permanently, then this special wire snaps in to hold the plastic in place.
This site has a picture.
http://www.poly-tex.com/pages/accessories/wigglewire.html
Bernie

BFG is the name of the company that is selling the hoophouses that I mentioned above. Their number is 800-883-0234.
15' X 48' $600 all the steel
15' X 24' $400 all the steel
The above comes with one purlin, extras for the 24' for $75 each. The cheaper plastic is $80 for a roll and would cover the smaller house twice. They said shipping to me is $17.
Thanks for the info on the wiggle wires. I don't know how we'll attach the plastic yet.

The nursery still hasn't gotten back to me about the used greenhouse. So I bought a small 6 X 8 Rion greenhouse. It won't be shipped until the 17th though. I'm putting this one up in my backyard and if the nursery owner ever gets back to me with a price, we may buy his and put it up at the farm. I don't have much sun in my backyard so the 6 X 8 is about all I can put back there. I started a new thread about what to do for a foundation and the floor of the Rion. Rion states that the frame will hold it down if its not in a windy area. Where I live, its not windy... at the farm, well, thats another story!

I see a BFG in Wisconsin, anyone know any more about that company? I am going to be in the market for a hoophouse. Happytrail why did you decide not to go with that plan? Legit

I found a small Rion gh for around $600 delivered, from Sears. Its taller and uses hard plastic instead of the soft, roll type. The Rion I can put in my backyard where its protected from wind; the larger coldframe was going to be put up at a farm where its super windy. Plus since its going to take so much longer to put up the cold frame from BFG and its getting late in the year, I decided to go with the smaller gh. I'm still waiting for the nursery owner to get back to me. If he doesn't get back to me by the end of the summer, I will probably buy the cold frame hoophouse from BFG. BFG is legit, I visited their store that is about 10 miles from my house. I also talked to a woman from my farmer's market that has ordered from them. Right now I'm in a time crunch to get some seedlings into a cold frame. It will be much faster to put up a 6 X 8 gh than a 15 X 24 or 48 ft length coldframe. We have only 1000 seedlings right now so they should fit into the little baby gh. In fact, the Rion came today!! Two boxes that I pulled into my living room to get them out of the rain. My DH is so going to trip on it when he gets home from work tonight. I wanted to prepare the site this past weekend but we had some of the rain from the noreaster this weekend and today it was snowing and raining.

Happytrail, are you starting a business? or just expanding. Are these tomato seedlings? Legit

We are starting a cut flower business and plan on selling at a new farmer's market and perhaps to some florists. We planted about 1000 seeds a few weeks ago, hoping to get an early start on having flowers to sell. We will probably buy a larger cold frame this year to use next spring. I've always wanted a greenhouse in my backyard. I'm excited about putting it up but the ground is saturated and I want to rototill the topsoil so I can remove it from where I want to put the gh. Patience, patience, it should be drying up starting Friday. So maybe I can rototill this weekend.

That is very interesting, and I would like to learn some things from you as you go along! We are starting a small garden center. Right now working on the gift shop, and have a million things to plan. We don't really want to be a florist, but would like to offer cut flowers in our shop. Also going to a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the possibility of a Farmer's Market in our town.

I think it would be nice if we had a particular forum for "starting a new business"!
Legit

Legit, have you tried visiting the market growers forum yet?

Yes, I have been on there, and there is some very valuable information, but I feel like what I am doing may be a little off-topic. I would like to post some pics of our progress, and be able to ask a jillion questions along the way! Guess I will just do that. Legit

Get on the Market Growers, it's for any marketing.
It's been a little slow there lately, we need new input.
Bernie

I've seen other people post over there about cut flowers, starting a new business, and farmers markets so I don't think you're off topic at all.

I've posted over on the market growers forum about cut flowers and farmers markets. Start a new thread, all of us newbies will learn from each other. Legit, I'm sending you a dmail.

Thanks, you guys, I'll start a thread soon, and do a progress report! I went to my first Local Business Association Meeting this morning. I felt kind of like a fish out of water, but it is important. You will be surprised to hear that one of the things they are working on is a Farmer's Market for Saturday mornings! Legit