Alrighty then... My wife and I are beginning the hunt for a greenhouse(me more than she). We want to get the best value for the money of course, and have roughly $1,000 to $3,000 to spend. I am looking for research right now. What is the best type of a greenhouse for orchids, dimensions, ventilation systems, heating system etc... I am down south, but we do experience a few days in the low 30's here. Cooling will probably be my biggest concern here. So any suggestions, tips, lessons learned will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Tadd :evil:

Congratulations, Tadd!! Welcome to the club!! I'm still searching and have about the same amount of money work with. I think the first thing you will want to ask yourself is how big do you want it to be?? You won't have the heating issues that I have in Maine, so you could get a decent size G/H!

Check out Farm Teks web site at:

http://www.farmtek.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&division=FarmTek

And Costco has a super deal on a SunGlo greenhouse. $2,999 with free delivery. The only thing is that it is small. However, it comes with EVERYTHING and I do mean EVERYTHING!

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=77&whse=BC&topnav=&cat=237&hierPath=114*237*

Have fun browsing!

AND...Congratulations on your new home!:clap:

Yes, congrats Tadd! Big step, and the greenhouse is certainly incentive!
I'm looking forward to seeing the answers to this post - greenhouses scare me...so many variables to concern one's self with. :shock:

Yes, Congrats, Tadd! Lucky you and very soon, you'll have more space for more plants! :clap2:

Tadd, it is nice to know that I am not alone in my greenhouse research. Peter (greenpaph) has been very helpful to me and has a wonderful greenhouse.

I've been researching on the internet for several months now and have turned up some informative web pages. In this one, the person built his own greenhouse:

http://users.adelphia.net/%7Esdculp/Greenhouse/Index3.html

There is another web site that shows an amazing greenhouse that someone built in New York. I cannot find it now, but I will keep looking & post if I can find it later. This greenhouse was so huge that you could grow trees in it!!

Congratulations!!
Be sure to make sure it is at least twice as big as you want. It is amazing how fast they fill up!
As for cooling, look into a swamp cooler for a smaller greenhouse as they usually work quite well and are pretty efficient to run compared to AC. I also recommend digging out the foundation of where you want the greenhouse at least a foot deep and filling it in with gravel. Before you fill it in, run pipe and install a few mist heads that stick up about 7" above the top of the gravel and run them on a timer. Combined with a few ceiling fans drawing air up, this humidifies well and also helps keep it a little cooler. Hope this helps a little.

Jon

I am not in the market for a greenhouse, but I am excited and envious of those of you who are.
I had a general question and a thought for those of you with greenhouses in the north. How do you keep humidity up in the winter? I imagine that most of the heating systems would generally dry out the air. Would it be possible to hook up some sort of boiler or steam system to the heat that would periodically release steam into the air?
Is steam even the right type of humidity? I know this was a topic on another thread awhile back, but I can't remember if steam was ever mentioned.
I imagined hooking up an electrical kettle to a timer so that it boiled for 5 minutes every hour or something simple like that.
Probably a dumb idea...

Probably a dumb idea...

Not at all! I wonder about steam also - looking forward to learning!

I have not gotten that far with my research yet. I think that if I were to get a large enough greenhouse, I could have space for a water garden with koi & water lillies, and the little pond would add humidity to the G/H, as well as to store heat.

Just a thought.

I wish I had the spare cash, but my oldest son is getting braces tomorrow and the extra cash is gone :cry:

Ouch braces I remember the days...Thanks Susan great info! I am hopefully going no bigger than 14' x 18' but It is all up in the air for the moment. I will let you know what I can find. If you can find that link to the NY greenhouse I would really like to see it.

he is excited but he doesn't know how much they will hurt the first few days and each time he goes in for checkups...I had them for a couple of years :ohmy:

Since your climate is warm (lucky SOB...), you can probably get away with less expensive construction than we can up here in the great white north. I'd spend a little time visiting as many people in your area with greenhouses as you can. They are the ones who will know how things really work in your area.

Perhaps you could build a large lath house. with a layer of greenhouse poly on the roof. I think that is important, because you want to control the watering. Mother nature sometimes gives you too much... The sides could be open lath for the warm months, and staple up a layer of plastic for the cold months. Or, I've seen structures in florida with 'roll up' sides. Tape one edge of the plastic to a long PVC pipe, and use it to roll up the sides. You can have ties at the roof line to hold up the plastic/pipe combo when you aren't using it.

If it never gets below the mid 30's for any extended period of time, with the sides rolled down (or mostly down), you might not have to heat in the winter, or only need to heat a little. You could buy an expensive greenhouse heater, but even a kerosene heater (I like the 'jet engine' kind) would be ok. I have one with a thermostat built in. I think it is a 55K BTU model, and it cost around 200 dollars. But it was sufficient to heat a 1500 sq ft greenhouse, even when it got into the low 20's outside.

I had all my plants outside until the middle of October last year, and it got down to near freezing several times. Actually had a killing frost in that period. Didn't lose much. The main trick is to keep the wind and rain off the plants when it is cold. I had two layers of shadecloth over the entire collection, and I think that kept a bubble of slightly warmer air near the plants.

Anyway, with the budget you have, I would probably go for the inexpensive but not optimal solution. That really isn't a lot to build a greenhouse with. You have the advantage of warm winters. Use it. A lath house is an excellent solution, it will provide shade, excellent ventilation, and it would be cheap to build a very large one. And, you can build it bigger than you need for the plants, and use the remaining space for outdoor activity. It may also be a feasible option to bring some of the more cold sensitive plants inside for a month. A little labor might save you several thousand dollars worth of glazing.

Well put Littlefrog. The expense should be must less in the south. Just be sure you have more than enough BTU's to heat the greenhouse Tadd.

Perhaps you could build a large lath house. with a layer of greenhouse poly on the roof. I think that is important, because you want to control the watering. Mother nature sometimes gives you too much... The sides could be open lath for the warm months, and staple up a layer of plastic for the cold months. Or, I've seen structures in florida with 'roll up' sides. Tape one edge of the plastic to a long PVC pipe, and use it to roll up the sides. You can have ties at the roof line to hold up the plastic/pipe combo when you aren't using it.

I am in the process of completing something similar to this, I built an inexpensive 31m x 6 m (100 ft x 20 ft) shadehouse. 70 ft is covered with 200 micro greenhouse plastic imported from Eiffel @ http://www.eiffel.it/uk/prod.htm
This was then covered with 40% shade cloth, the ramaining 30 ft is covered with 60% shade cloth and no plastic and houses some parrots and Cymbidiums. I still have to put plastic down the front of the 70 ft section (shade cloth is done), and I like the idea of taping it to PVC piping to roll it up.

I have not gotten that far with my research yet. I think that if I were to get a large enough greenhouse, I could have space for a water garden with koi & water lillies, and the little pond would add humidity to the G/H, as well as to store heat.

In order to increase the humidity I built a Koi pond in the shadehoue and this increased it by about 30%, and does keep the temp more stable at night.

I am not in the market for a greenhouse, but I am excited and envious of those of you who are.
I had a general question and a thought for those of you with greenhouses in the north. How do you keep humidity up in the winter? I imagine that most of the heating systems would generally dry out the air. Would it be possible to hook up some sort of boiler or steam system to the heat that would periodically release steam into the air?
Is steam even the right type of humidity? I know this was a topic on another thread awhile back, but I can't remember if steam was ever mentioned.
I imagined hooking up an electrical kettle to a timer so that it boiled for 5 minutes every hour or something simple like that.
Probably a dumb idea...

Missed this the first time...

The short answer (for me) is that I wish I had too little humidity in the winter. My humidity is way too high (to the point where water dripping from the ceiling kills plants). There are a couple reasons for this. Largely, when I water, the water vapor has no where to go. The vents don't open in the winter, it is too cold. Also, the temparatures are cooler in the winter, especially at night, and sometimes it is a fog bank in the greenhouse. Some people have unvented heaters, and the water given off by burning hydrocarbons is substantial (my heater is vented).

Here are some more links I found. I have not been able to find the one on that spectacular orchid house, but it might be somewhere in these links. I will keep looking for that post.

Garden Web:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/strucs/

and Dave's Garden:

http://davesgarden.com/forums/f/greenhouse

Tadd, I wish I had your "problem," as I'm thinking about BTU's and heaters, due to our brutal Maine Winters. I'm sure I will end up with a small space, just due to economics. I must be losing it!! Imagine contemplating putting up a greenhouse in these times of spiraling energy prices! :lol::lol: (I was dying to use that little rolling head guy)

Rob, Do you recommend vented or unvented propane heaters? I know you mentioned you have a vented one. I heard somewhere that the unvented heaters could cause buds to drop. However, there are so many places that sell the unvented ones, and they would be easier to install.

I was also thinking about using a spare Monitor heater that I bought in a yard sale for $100. (If it works) I think it's big enough, and I could always haul in the K1. It could save some cash, if it is viable and it is just sitting around anyway doing nothing.

:lol::lol: (I was dying to use that little rolling head guy)

Hahah - yes, we replaced the older one this morning. I was laughing about something and had to go find it - anyway, glad you like!

Rob, Do you recommend vented or unvented propane heaters? I know you mentioned you have a vented one. I heard somewhere that the unvented heaters could cause buds to drop. However, there are so many places that sell the unvented ones, and they would be easier to install.

I was also thinking about using a spare Monitor heater that I bought in a yard sale for $100. (If it works) I think it's big enough, and I could always haul in the K1. It could save some cash, if it is viable and it is just sitting around anyway doing nothing.

I think vented heaters are probably safer, and for some reason I think they are more efficient. I'm not sure why I think that... I don't know that the vented heaters would be any more difficult to install. You can get a wall mounted model. Cut a hole in the wall, mount... Mine were harder, as they are hung from the ceiling of the greenhouse and have a chimney pipe. Main difficulty was that they are darn heavy.

Don't skimp on a furnace. It is better to spend a few hundred dollars more on a good one than to make do with a bad one. Your plants are worth far more than the heater. A cheap heater might be good for a backup, though.

Consider two heaters. One should be independent of electricity, if you can manage it. They are backups for each other. For mechanical failure, chances are very good that they won't fail at the same time. And if the power goes out, you are going to want heat. I have a battery backup system for the greenhouse (albeit not completely functional yet, maybe this weekend).

Thanks Rob! Good info and I certainly don't want to lose my plants because of a cheap heater. I will test out the monitor very thoroughly before I decide to use it. The reason I'm considering it is that I have a smaller monitor in an 18' x 22' camp and it does a good job keeping it at 52 degrees F on some very cold nights. and it is pretty efficient and economical to run.

I've also seen some heaters that just run on propane and will get one of those as well, if I can EVER make a decision about the greenhouse. :confused:

Tadd, as for you (and everyone else for that matter), I finally found that web page with the huge greenhouse and the orchid tree.

It is called the "Monster Greenhouse," and it certainly lives up to its name:

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1vlnx/index.html

Enjoy!

Alrighty then... My wife and I are beginning the hunt for a greenhouse(me more than she). We want to get the best value for the money of course, and have roughly $1,000 to $3,000 to spend. I am looking for research right now. What is the best type of a greenhouse for orchids, dimensions, ventilation systems, heating system etc... I am down south, but we do experience a few days in the low 30's here. Cooling will probably be my biggest concern here. So any suggestions, tips, lessons learned will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Tadd :evil:

I would suggest a quonset, of course. try crop king.

Here's another one I found.

I can only dream and drool!!!

http://n4bk.com/

I have to admit I've also been thinking about where I could squeeze in a greenhouse (& I've drooled over the 'Monster Greenhouse' pages). What I've been looking at is the Atlas Greenhouse -hobby greenhouse, lean-to 'Franco', which comes in a 12' width, length by 6', so 18-24'. But I know everyone says go as wide as you can-I have one spot on my lot that would be suitable for an attached greenhouse, but my max width would be 20'. (& that's taking out a tree)-this may be just a pipe dream for awhile, one that I'm working towards, because I have to face the fact that we may not be living in our house in a few years & it takes a special renter to want to maintain a greenhouse.

I'd like to think that if I situated the greenhouse against/near the house, I could run plumbing. Anyway, at this point, it's a distant goal, for this fall, I will be equipping the laundry room with supplemental lighting for the orchids. & I'll have plenty of time to figure out what to do with my backyard...

Hi Thistle,

I think that a lean-to greenhouse is one of the best options. It should save on heating, cooling, and bringing in electricity & plumbing. It won't work for me, as the Southern exposure on our house is where the entrance to the basesment is.

Yes, the wider the better. Most of the kits I've seen for attached or lean/to greenhouses are only 6' wide. I would think that those dimensions would be very confining.