The Greenhouse - Part 2

When we last left off there were still two walls to go. The urgency grows because as they say on "Game of Thrones", "Winter is coming." I'll grant you that winter down here isn't much of a deep freeze but more like a handful of days sprinkled throughout late December to mid-February where the nighttime temperatures get into the mid to high 20's. But still...it's enough to hurt or kill some of our tender plants and especially our citrus and tropical plants.

So the latest progress is... I've put up the third wall, which consists of 1/2" plywood at the bottom and I took advantage of supplies that I had on hand and used a large roll of sheet plastic for the upper wall. It was a quick and easy solution and will get me through the next year or two.

After that was put up and screwed and stapled into place, it was time to use the tractor to scrape the ground smooth (relatively so) and put down weed-stop cloth and order a dump truck or two of gravel to spread over the floor.

Third wall and some of the weed-stop cloth

The gravel is spread here...

...and here. I wanted enough to make things nicer for the heavy equipment too.
Greenhouse wall is to the right.

Once all of that was in place, I was now free to put up the final (front) wall.

Beginning to frame out the front wall with a door we reclaimed from the old house

All framed in. Door and window installed and plastic panels in place.

With the main part of the work done, now comes the detail work to keep the warm air in and the cold air out. The means covering up the spacing in the rafters at the edges of the roof and other overhead areas. It also means injecting spray foam into the open channels of the plastic (corrugated) panels at the top, bottom and around the windows and door. There are a lot of gaps and each type requires a different solution.

These are the rafters (and spaces I have to fill). Actual pine posts of an undetermined age.

This is the gap at the back end (same on the front) where I'll have to
cut pieces of the panels at an angle to fit.

I started with the biggest gap of all, where the front wall meets the corner of the barn. For that gap I used spray foam (in a can) to fill in every place I could see daylight coming through. Plus, it was sort of an out of the way place to practice my first time using spray foam. It's not pretty, but it filled everywhere I needed to fill and I cannot see any holes where air can pass through.

Ugly, but it's an airtight corner.

Since I was already using spray foam, I decided to keep going and fill in the gaps along the bottom and around the windows where the corrugated panels allow air in.

It expands quite a bit. I'll trim away the excess in a day or two

Along the bottom of the windows.

A better view along the ground and the window bottoms

I ran out of spray foam (4 cans so far and I'm about 40% done) so I turned my attention to adding weather-stripping to a window (as a test), a hook to hold it closed and a lid hinge (or stay) to hold it open.

I purchased storm door weather-stripping as I could get it in thicker sizing as some of my window gaps are quite large. I estimated I'd need over 40 feet of it as each window opening is approximately 28" x 28" and I have 10 windows. We'll see how far it all goes.

Weather-stripping and a hook to hold it closed

The lid hinge (or stay) to hold it open. No idea how long that cheap brass-looking metal will last.

It works!

For the rafter ends on each side I'm going to use the shiny aluminum bubble insulation. It will wrap around any shape and can handle moisture and humidity which is perfect for a greenhouse.

It staples into place, wraps around things and covers very large areas.

There are a lot of little things left to do, but the greenhouse is essentially done. It can now fulfill its purpose of protecting our plants from frost and mild freeze. The next step is getting electricity to the barn so I can run a couple of heaters out there. That should happen in the next couple of weeks.

We'll be back with another update after that happens.

If we don't blog before then, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to everyone!