Cattle Panel Hoophouse Greenhouse

There is a bunch of paperwork that goes with that type of free greenhouse and in this case I want to do some experiments with no restrictions or constraints. Ive been talking with friends all of which recognize the heat problem. Propane hot water heaters & piping etc has been suggested. Wood stove , triple wall pipe with lots of creative piping has been suggested. I will take one or all of the ideas and adapt them. A gentleman is apparently raising bananas and tilapia in Kansas who is a friend of friends so I’m analyzing several methods. Anything I do this time will fall into the experimental phase. I’m aware of the program and very much appreciate the suggestion @Hillbillyhort . What i wind up doing may look nothing like what we think it does now. @JustAnne4 mentioned double plastic which is hard to argue with the effectiveness of that. Love that greenhouse setup @JustAnne4 and @Carrie has a setup that looks very similar to what I’m doing in terms of structure. It’s a strong structural design in my opinion. I may not inflate my plastic a friend suggested running pvc pipe over the first later of plastic. He suggested we create a gap with pvc pipes and the second layer of plastic on top. With a space that way there is a lot of additional insulation. A friend suggested I build a boiler because he knows I built a Wood stove from scratch for the project already. @marknmt brings up the most important thing which is the beds. I’m considering using warm water from a small five gallon propane water heater or wood burning homemade device and pumping water through the bottom of every grow box. It would be like every grow box sitting on a heat mat. The pipes would run under the grow boxes. Several friends and I are hashing the details out and everyone is aware of the problems and no one has the solution yet. Solar fans and water barrels etc. have came up many times already but there is not a solution at this time to keep this greenhouse warm enough yet for year round use of everything. @39thparallel and I talked in depth the other day and he brought up some great points of using soil warmth and partially build it into a south hillside. All of these are very good ideas to address a big problem with fluctuating heat. A friend who is heavily involved in aquaponics Aquaponics is thinking over this project and attempting to come up with some additional ideas. Much of their systems are regulated by the water temps.

2 Likes