Took the shade off my GH today

Do we get pics please?

 

I put new skin on mine last Sunday. Boy did I hurt on Monday. Wouldn't you know the 24 year old stapler gave out in the middle of the project and I had to go to the hardware store to buy a new one. oh yea, wouldn't you know I bough the wrong staples for the new stapler and had to run up to the hardware store to get the right ones. Who would have thought there are 3 different type of staples?

I'll have to take a photo tomorrow for all.

 

I need to take the shade cloth off of my greenhouse. Its about 2 weeks overdue. It only takes 10 minuyes or so, but I've been distracted.

 

Ed, you have been distracted. I've had my shade cloth off for two weeks. Nice and sunny here until the last couple of days and getting lots of new growth...also squirrels
tramping across my gh roof. They didn't DO that with the shade cloth up.

Ed, is your heater(s) set on a clock timer? I've had to re-set my clock timer for the first time in five years. It's getting glitchy and old, I think.

 

Angela; Just make sure that clock timer of yours doesn't really glitch things up and cut the power off entirely to your heater!

Forrest: I know what you mean. I took my shade cloth off about a month ago. What a difference! ....And for a little while, the plants have a reawakening and grow again....until the REALLY short, cloudy days of mid-November and December arrive. I also notice a BIG change in the spring when I put the shade back on. I usually do this in late March. By then, the Vandas have started to turn purple and a lot of stuff is beginning to look a bit stressed. Then, when the shade goes on, things begin to look better again and the Vandas go back to being green.

 

John, I have two 220 volt heaters, a night heater and a day heater, and one is always a
back-up if temps. go below 60F. I reset the clock and it's working fine now, but I'm
keeping an eye on it and my remote monitor.

 

The clock timer controls the thermostats on the two heaters. The day heater comes on
at 7am-off 7pm when the night heater comes on when needed. My gh is pretty much
automatically controlled...heaters, louvers, exhaust fan. The damn thing won't water
itself though!

 

Angela; It seems from what you've said above that your "night" heater is online 24/7 and your daytime heater is online from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. So it seems that your timer controls the day heater only and presumably, it's thermostat is set at a higher temp than the night heater's thermostat. This way, you get an automatic adjustment between a higher daytime temp and a lower nighttime temp. However, if I've understood you correctly, that means that you don't have an automatic backup heater during the nighttime because only the nighttime heater is receiving power and on standby.

I also have two heaters. They are both 175,000 BTU's. One is run on natural gas (with a standing pilot light) and the other is on propane gas (with an electronic lighter). Each heater has two thermostats....one is for daytime and the other is for nighttime. All four thermostats are controlled by one timer. When it clicks over to the daytime setting both heaters are "online" with their own daytime termostats. When the timer clicks over to the nighttime setting, both heaters are "online" with their own nighttime thermostats.

I set the natural gas heater daytime thermostat at 75*F and it's nighttime thermostate at 62*F. The propane heater's thermostats are set 10*F lower than the natural gas heater's thermostats. This way, the natural gas heater is the "main" heater and does all the work of heating the greenhouse (natural gas is cheaper). However, if it breaks down, the temp in the greenhouse would fall lower than it's normal setting and eventually, it would get cool enough for the (back-up), propane heater's thermostat to begin calling for heat. Then, the propane heater takes over....and the plants are just a bit cooler than normal until I discover the problem with the natural gas heater and fix it.

When the timer clicks over both heaters to their nighttime thermostats, the temperature simply falls down to 62*F before the natural gas heater calls for heat again. Since the propane heater is now controlled by it's nighttime thermostat which is set at 52*F, it still does not come on. The natual gas heater comes on again before the propage heater ever gets to a point where it's thermostat calls for heat.

However, in the a.m., when the timer clicks over to the daytime settings for both heaters, the propane heater gets a 10 or 15 minute exercise period. This happens because the setting on the daytime thermostat for the propane heater is higher than the nighttime setting for the natural gas heater. Because the natural gas heater was keeping the temp at 62*F overnight, when the timer switches over to the daytime setting, the propane heater is suddenly calling for heat at anything lower than 65*F, while the natural gas heater suddenly wants it to be 75*F. Therefore, both heaters daytime thermostats call for heat at the same time. The propane heater runs for about 10 minutes until it's need for temps of 65*F are met. Then, it shuts down and goes into standby mode for the rest of the day. Of course, the natural gas heater continues to run and heat the greenhouse until it brings the temp up to 75*F. Then, it continues to maintain that temp throughout the day, until the timer clicks over to the nighttime settings again.

It should be noted that my plants do usually get more than just a ~10*F differential between day and night. This is because, as the day advances, the sun warms the greenhouse more than the 75*F that the natural gas heater is set at. If the sun warms the greenhouse too much, an exhaust fan comes on at 85*F and goes off when it gets the temp down to 80*F. At the same time that the exhaust fan is running, a motorized louvre opens at the other end of the greenhouse to provide cool fresh air in to replace the overheated air that is being exhausted.

Of course, having a backup heater doesn't help if you do like I did last March and turn off the propane heater at the breaker panel to do some maintenance work......and that night [the first time in 15 years(!)] the natural gas heater loses it's pilot light due to an old thermocouple finally giving up! DUH!!! I still can't believe that I was so unlucky; but, it just goes to show that crazy stuff does happen! You just never know when something's gonna break down, even though it seems incredibly unlikely.

So, if I understand you correctly and you only have one heater "online" overnight, you might want to consider getting an electrician in to put both heaters on their own day thermostat and both on their own night thermostat, with all 4 thermostats controlled by the same (hardwired) heavy duty timer. This way, both your heaters could take care of things 24/7, not just during the daytime, with only one heater on standby for the overnight period.