Greenhouse construction

Thought y'all might like to see the progress so far. I first had to remove some japanese maples and relocate them.


Then they put in the forms and drains.

View through the window after the pour and you can see the water line, gas line, and electric rough-in if you look close enough.
Framing begins. Only the west wall and roof will be 3-wall poly. The other walls won't get any meaningful light so there was no point in putting expensive poly on them.

Exterior wood panels and electric going in and the roof frame starts. I decided to change to 6' roof rafters instead of the 8' that I'd planned. It would have been something like 14' tall with the 8's and I worried about it being too tall.

You can see the framing for the door and one of the two side vents. Hopefully i'll pay for a swamp cooler on friday and they'll pick it up monday. Not sure when the plastic sheets will arrive but soon I hope. The electrician still has some work to do putting in outlets and when it cools off some he'll get into the attic and string a wire to actually get the electricity to the gh. The walls are 8' on a 1' slab so it definitely seems tall, which is good. More later...

 

Yes I did. They had to tap into the main house water supply in the front yard by the meter and use a backhoe to dig down to the line. It must have been at least ten feet deep. Then a trench was dug across the front, down the side, and into the back for the line. $850 later (including a gas line) I had water. I also lost almost all the water pressure to my kitchen sink in the process but that has since been resolved. Did I mention that my tap water isn't really suitable for long-term orchid use? TDS is usually over 350ppm.

 

The stub is already in. It is a 3/4" line and the heater will require 1/2" so i'll have to get a reducer. I really hope that I won't need a generator. The times when power goes out tend to be in the spring as a result of violent storms and it usually isn't too hot at those times (course 'hot' is quite relative). So anyway if the power goes out I'm hoping the passive vents will be enough until it comes back on. The heater won't require electricity so if the power goes out in the winter it shouldn't be a problem.

 

I currently use 5-gallon buckets. And for rainwater I use several large plastic trashcans. I like the Brute brand although they're not cheap. I'll probably just use one of those for a 'tank'.

 

It will be 8' wide by 16' long with 8' tall walls and roof rafters that are 6' long which makes it somwhere around 12' tall at the peak more or less. Not nearly big enough but about as big as the site can handle.

 

The builders haven't done anything to speak of this week. We're waiting for poly sheets to come in and the electrician had to finish his part. So hopefully next week they'll keep moving. The roof is framed in but that's about the only difference since the last picture I posted. I'll try to snap a pic of it. Need to call the plastic distributor and find out if the sheets have arrived yet. I also need to pick up the swamp cooler or get the contractors to get it. It won't fit in my car.

Here's a question. The drains are connected to some flexible pipe with holes kind of like the type used for septic systems (but bigger). It hasn't been dug in yet and I was thinking it might be a good idea to wrap those pipes in weed barrier fabric to keep dirt from getting in and to limit roots from getting in. I can imagine that there will be no good way to clean those pipes out once they're burried if the drainage system should happen to get plugged up. Any issues with that idea?