Greenhouse tour

[mtequine]

One of the members of the local society invited me to tour her greenhouse after the meeting! It was great to get some ideas, and know that it's possible to have one that runs efficiently all year in this climate!

It's 12x20 and stands alone-they use hot water radiator heat, (on the walls and in the floor) and don't have a back up...but did say they had a 3 hour power outage a few weeks ago and it only dropped one degree. He said he wants to rewire it so he can have a generator outside that would power the heating system in case of a longer power failure or other problem during extremly cold weather. I guess their heating bill for the greenhouse AND their 2000 sq ft house last month (with a good week of below zero temps) was only $120!

They have the inside bubble wrapped, and I guess it's triple pane poly-carb. Lots of electric outlets, and a water filtration system that filters out the chlorine from the city water. They have a custom fit/made shade cloth that goes on the outside and has enough room in it that the roof vents can open-and it seemed like from what he said those were automated.

I asked what they'd change, and she doesn't like the floor-it's big square patio bricks in sand, she hates the sand but didn't want to do gravel floor as it would be hard to clean. I asked her if she was happy with the size, and she said sure-that it could have easily been bigger but it takes plenty of time to tend to what she has (and it's not anywhere near full) so she's satisfied with it the size that it is.....

There were several vandas, lots of catts, a few phrags/paphs, some phals, few oncids....little of everything!

They sent me home with a jewel orchid.

[IdahoOrchid]

Oh, if you ever go back PLEASE take a camera. You know I live in a similar evironment and we are considering a 8x8 place. Still not sure if we would try to make it year round or just a place to put the high light plants out for the summer.

[mtequine]

Sure will, Steven....and I also think these people would probably be quite willing to chat with you about their experience having a greenhouse in this climate.....I guess the husband even has a powerpoint presentation that he gives at the orchid meetings on the building process-they did all the work themselves.

I definitely came away thinking that having a set up like that for a year round growing area was feasible here and not as expensive to maintain as I expected it would be.