Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Lots of pictures

I was finally able to get out and get some pictures of "Greenhouse #2" before I put the second layer of glazing on.


In the photo above the white piece of plywood leaning against the end is not part of the design, it just happens to be there. Behind the plywood is the plywood that is nailed to the wall.
The photo on the left is a view of the other end, this wall is facing due east.
The photo on the right is a closeup of the corner. I tried to round it with a router and chisel as much as possible to help relieve the pressure so that the plastic is less likely to rip.

As you can see from these photos, one piece of plastic stretches from the front wall all the way over and part way down the back wall. The small white square in the upper left corner is where a vent will be installed. I was able to find some 20' wide plastic at Home Depot. I made it long enough, about (8'+16'+8'=) so that it could stretch down and cover the end walls. The left end wall was also remove and covered separately and reinstalled. The same could be done for the front wall if necessary but it would then be hard to secure the plastic to the front wall.

Three quarter inch PVC pipe was used as the support members for the roof. They connect into the front wall with plumbers tape and are secured into some 1 1/8" holes that were drilled in the top of the wall.
As you can see from the photos on the left there were two different ways that I experimented with for securing the pipe to the all.

Each of the PVC pipes are secured to a brace about half way up the roof line and that brace is attached to the back wall with another diagonal brace. Another one should be applied that goes the other direction but this one does a surprisingly good job by itself. The photo at the left shows how the pipe is attached to the main brace. You can also see from this photo that the walls are insulated with white foam.
The brace is attached on top of the pipe so that the metal tape doesn't chaff the plastic.

Each of the walls are connected to each other with two bolts and t-nuts. Thus by removing 8 bolts the whole thing can come apart and be moved. I've moved each of the walls except for the back wall. It is probably getting a bit heavy since it is 16 feet long. Also the back wall has rebar that goes through the bottom of the wall to help keep it from going on a walk like the first one did.

Well that is enough rambling for now. I hope that the pictures help you better understand what I have accomplished so far.