Building a Greenhouse

     This is our first winter with a greenhouse.  The hubby and kids and I all worked on it together for several months last winter as a family.   It was a great project, and the boys learned alot about building things.   I can't say its super pretty to look at, but it's not bad, and it is quite functional.

The rough framing of all the walls is now complete

We used recycled windows for all of the side walls and did a lean-to style against the south wall of the house.   We did not permanently attach it to the house except for 2 screws so that we didn't need a building permit to do it.   We also had a really dry, somewhat warm winter last year which enabled us to spend time outside building.  This year that would've been impossible with nearly 8 inches of snow on the ground for over a month now.

      I'm not too concerned with things being perfect, so long as they last and are functional.   That being said, there are several things we really did wrong on this project.   We did alot of things backwards, and considering we've never really taken on this big of a building project, that is probably pretty normal.   We purchased most of the windows (Double pane) first from the Habitat for Humanity RE-Store where they sell off old building products that are either donated or taken out of homes they rebuild.
      That part was actually pretty cool because we got a killer deal.  The day we showed up they were having a 50% off sale and we paid around $20 a peice for most of the windows which ended up being a big blessing since the 4 or 5 that we still needed cost us an arm and a leg.   We had to check all the glass company boneyards and most of the windows were new, just sized incorrectly for projects so they were still pretty expensive.
     After we had most of the windows, I did a sort of blueprint of each wall sketching in where each of the windows we had bought would fit and determining what was left that we needed.

Left hubby and my oldest working on the roof.  Right, my little painter hard at work.  She really enjoyed doing the painting, and actually got quite a bit done.

 Here all 3 kids work together to attache the Polycarbonate Panels to a frame for the top portion of the roof closest to the house.

  

Left: The final framing for the roof is complete and we begin attaching panels.  The panels are sold at Home Depot in 2x12' lengths so we had to plan the supports on the roof accordingly.  We also sealed each panel with silicon as we attached it to the studs.

 Above right: The roof is complete and several windows have gone in.   The windows were actually alot easier to install than we thought.   And I was lucky enough to find a couple of sliders for ventilation.

 

Here is the mostly completed view from the right.  This is how it still pretty much looks.   We have done alot of foam sealing inside and around windows to help keep out the cold, as well as replaced the plastic you can see with wood and plexi- glass to finish those areas. As you can see we have a loose foundation of bricks and frame.  I would've done this differently personally but I tried to be quiet as hubby put everything together.  :-)

  

Here is the completed view from the left.   The doors were purchased at the Habitat store as well and are double pane glass.  Well they were at least until a rock from the trimmer we were using flew up and shattered the outer layer on this door.   But we will just watch for a replacement at Re-Store.  In the meantime we've taped a sheet of plastic inside to help insulate.

We still have alot to learn, but i still tomatoes producing since last summer.   We are having alot of trouble with whiteflies but I have been using an organic pesticide to help, and I will report back on that later as well.   We currently are running a space heater with an automatic thermostat so that when the sun heats up the greenhouse in the afternoons, its shuts off automatically.   I was amazed that even in the bitter cold temperatures we've had this year, the greenhouse never once went below freezing point.  The lowest it ever got was about 38º and that was only rarely.   We've actually kept it above 50º for the most part and much of the time we are above 60º F.   So I feel like it is a success at this point, I just have to get the bugs under control, and do better with starting some more potted tomatoes for next year.    I will also be starting seeds soon, and will go through my process for that as well.   I successfully grew all of last years garden starts from seed in the greenhouse shortly after we built it.

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