Double glass pannels are everywhere cheap!
The slidding glass doors seem to be thrown out everywhere. I must have gotten 8 of them for a few bucks this year. I even got one 4 by 6. Usually they are 3 by 6 foot 8 inches! Setting then as a border at the bottom of the greenhouse on the south side insulates and allows full light in! I can start my plastic above the window. The heavy weight on the sliding door seals itself against the ground and the wind never moves it! You can't beat double glass for full light entering and it never discolours! when they remodle a home the double glass windows can be bought cheap!
I bought two more sliding glass doors today for $20! They are 3 by 6 foot 8 inches. I would like to do a whole greenhouse with just those windows! The doors are really heavy about 80 pounds each! I have one 4 by 6 that is over a 100 pounds!
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I find things for my greenhouse everywhere very cheap! I got some old freezer shelves that were used in a food store floor freezer that are a solid steel that I will use for my shelves so if I put anything under it the light still comes through!
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I find things for my greenhouse everywhere very cheap! I got some old freezer shelves that were used in a food store floor freezer that are a solid steel that I will use for my shelves so if I put anything under it the light still comes through!
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FlowerPowerGirl
- Full Member
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Mon Aug 15, 2011 7:36 am
- Location: In the garden.
Picked up my 9 double pane glass slidding doors today 4 foot by 6 foot eight inches. I paid $200 for all 9. They are very heavy about 150 pounds or more each! I would love to make a 36 foot south slightly angled wall using them. They were taken from a $300,000 home torn down! I would think they would cost about $500 for a set of two now! Any suggestions on how to use them?
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kayakplayer
- Newly Registered
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2011 8:52 pm
- Location: Appleton, WI
You could join me and start experimenting while you decide what to do. I plan to build an East-West 6' wall of straw bales pinned together and held in place by rebar stakes. You could add bale side walls the width of one of your door frames extending toward the South, more bales for a door footing, then lean a sliding glass door between them and against the South side of the main wall. You can enter and vent using the sliding door, and you have a small greenhouse in the time it takes to stack a bunch of straw bales. I'll go from wall top to the ground with my poly tunnel components.
Want to heat it for the winter? Do you have access to enough compostable material? Will you have plenty of water available? I'm collecting material for a pile 5' tall and 5' across plus the length of my bale wall. The pile will be my heat source. I've been looking for two lengths of 4" or 6" drainage pipe, 2 end caps, and some flexible pipe of the same size. I'll need a blower unit to work with the pipe and capable of moving 5x my greenhouse air volume/hour. I plan to lay one pipe on the ground across the North of the straw bales leaving about 2' of space, and the other across the floor of my greenhouse mid-space. I'll pass one section of flexible pipe from the outside drainage pipe to the inflow of the blower. I'll use another section of flexible pipe to connect the outflow of the blower to the drainage pipe running under the planting bed. Orienting the blower to draw a vacuum from the compost pile and pushing air under the growing bed will aerate the compost by drawing outside air through the pile from above (so I won't need to turn the pile!) It draws the heated air and moisture from the compost and pushes it up through the soil beneath the plants. CO2 from the compost helps them grow twice as fast. Cap the ends of the drain pipes. Cover the drain pipes with landscape cloth, and then cover it with wood chips 12" deep as filter medium. Then burry them both. Compost goes over the outside pipe & wood chips, 18" of loamy soil goes over the inside pipe & wood chips. Keep the compost as moist as a damp sponge checking daily. Plug the blower into a timer, and you will have a small scale compost heated greenhouse with biofilter. Run it more often when it is colder. The more you run it, the quicker the compost should be consumed and the more heat you should get.
You may need to replace your compost pile every 3-4 weeks in order to maintain the temperatures in the space according to the research I read. That depends upon the size of the pile and how fast the compost cooks. They also warn about the build up of ammonia gas in the system, and biofilters aren't self-monitoring. If this were a permanent installation, I would trench and place the pipes well below grade to simplify moving compost in and out, install gravel footings to keep the bales off the earth, etc.
I plan to be especially careful about composting animal manure. I plan to make lots of biochar from tree limbs that are blocking winter sunlight, and use it in place of wood chips around the drain pipes under the compost pile and planting bed. This is where I'm treading on untried methods from what I gather. I'll start with small amounts of manure in my mix, and am looking for an ammonia test device to be safe. My theorey is that biochar will act as a filter medium to absorb at least 50% of the nitrogen available as ammonia in the compost pile. It has been shown to absorb ammonia gasses at that rate and sometimes more, and I hope the remaining ammonia is captured as moisture condenses in the biochar under the planting bed and in the soil mixture. My leaf mold and the compost I will mix it with in the planting bed are both supposed to do great jobs of removing foul gases in large scale installations, but be especially careful to mix your compost materials well if you have animal manure and bedding soaked with urine. Don't let your compost get too wet either due to anaerobic bacteria producing other nasty gasses.
This process is also meant to treat the biochar for use in garden soil, so I will happily replace it with each new compost pile. I'll install a fresh layer of biochar as the new filter medium. This is also untried from what I've read. Then, to gain full advantage of the used biochar's ability to fix nitrogen for long periods, I'll crush it and mix it with my compost to spread on the other garden beds. It reportedly acts as a buffer to increase soil PH, so I'll withhold it from areas around the blueberry bushes.
Come late Spring, I'll nock the whole thing down and store my poly tunnel and aeration system components. I should have everything ready for a great planting bed on the spot, along with whatever has been started for transplant. I'll use the bales for mulch or compost material if they look like they won't give another winter of service. My plan is to move this system from space to space building soil, establishing a permaculture system, and learning what I need to know before building a more permanent solar greenhouse attached to my home. That's definitely a project where I'll want used sliding glass doors.
Want to heat it for the winter? Do you have access to enough compostable material? Will you have plenty of water available? I'm collecting material for a pile 5' tall and 5' across plus the length of my bale wall. The pile will be my heat source. I've been looking for two lengths of 4" or 6" drainage pipe, 2 end caps, and some flexible pipe of the same size. I'll need a blower unit to work with the pipe and capable of moving 5x my greenhouse air volume/hour. I plan to lay one pipe on the ground across the North of the straw bales leaving about 2' of space, and the other across the floor of my greenhouse mid-space. I'll pass one section of flexible pipe from the outside drainage pipe to the inflow of the blower. I'll use another section of flexible pipe to connect the outflow of the blower to the drainage pipe running under the planting bed. Orienting the blower to draw a vacuum from the compost pile and pushing air under the growing bed will aerate the compost by drawing outside air through the pile from above (so I won't need to turn the pile!) It draws the heated air and moisture from the compost and pushes it up through the soil beneath the plants. CO2 from the compost helps them grow twice as fast. Cap the ends of the drain pipes. Cover the drain pipes with landscape cloth, and then cover it with wood chips 12" deep as filter medium. Then burry them both. Compost goes over the outside pipe & wood chips, 18" of loamy soil goes over the inside pipe & wood chips. Keep the compost as moist as a damp sponge checking daily. Plug the blower into a timer, and you will have a small scale compost heated greenhouse with biofilter. Run it more often when it is colder. The more you run it, the quicker the compost should be consumed and the more heat you should get.
You may need to replace your compost pile every 3-4 weeks in order to maintain the temperatures in the space according to the research I read. That depends upon the size of the pile and how fast the compost cooks. They also warn about the build up of ammonia gas in the system, and biofilters aren't self-monitoring. If this were a permanent installation, I would trench and place the pipes well below grade to simplify moving compost in and out, install gravel footings to keep the bales off the earth, etc.
I plan to be especially careful about composting animal manure. I plan to make lots of biochar from tree limbs that are blocking winter sunlight, and use it in place of wood chips around the drain pipes under the compost pile and planting bed. This is where I'm treading on untried methods from what I gather. I'll start with small amounts of manure in my mix, and am looking for an ammonia test device to be safe. My theorey is that biochar will act as a filter medium to absorb at least 50% of the nitrogen available as ammonia in the compost pile. It has been shown to absorb ammonia gasses at that rate and sometimes more, and I hope the remaining ammonia is captured as moisture condenses in the biochar under the planting bed and in the soil mixture. My leaf mold and the compost I will mix it with in the planting bed are both supposed to do great jobs of removing foul gases in large scale installations, but be especially careful to mix your compost materials well if you have animal manure and bedding soaked with urine. Don't let your compost get too wet either due to anaerobic bacteria producing other nasty gasses.
This process is also meant to treat the biochar for use in garden soil, so I will happily replace it with each new compost pile. I'll install a fresh layer of biochar as the new filter medium. This is also untried from what I've read. Then, to gain full advantage of the used biochar's ability to fix nitrogen for long periods, I'll crush it and mix it with my compost to spread on the other garden beds. It reportedly acts as a buffer to increase soil PH, so I'll withhold it from areas around the blueberry bushes.
Come late Spring, I'll nock the whole thing down and store my poly tunnel and aeration system components. I should have everything ready for a great planting bed on the spot, along with whatever has been started for transplant. I'll use the bales for mulch or compost material if they look like they won't give another winter of service. My plan is to move this system from space to space building soil, establishing a permaculture system, and learning what I need to know before building a more permanent solar greenhouse attached to my home. That's definitely a project where I'll want used sliding glass doors.