Greenhouse - Goodbye Old Friend, Hello New

I didn't think of making this a project for here until @CanadianLori suggested it. Thanks Lori.

We moved here to Shineyland just over 53 years ago. To be able to afford a place in the country we needed to buy a house that was almost derelict and a massively overgrown garden. We started on trying to find the back of the garden whilst planning how to renovate the building.

It took us three years to work our way to the back of the garden (found some old chicken sheds under the undergrowth/overgrowth and started working on making some veggie patches and planning a greenhouse.



And working on the house/bungalow


We got the greenhouse 50 years ago and moving on 30 years


The greenhouse was never too full in early Spring




But approaching summer Mrs Shiney was getting busier in there






Then, sadly, ten years ago it started to show its age and the roof panes of glass started slipping out.


and wood was rotting


So we just caught it in time and ran new timber all the way round


And five years ago it was still holding


BUT......

 

Five years later - this month - the panes of glass started sliding out as the wood beneath has rotted too much.

We needed to try to hold it together whilst we looked for a suitable replacement and taped it up, all round, with flashing tape. The tape held but the wood didn't!


and the wood started coming away all round


The only way I could try and stop it coming out completely (I thought that with the strong winds, if all the glass started sliding, the whole thing would collapse) was to push the glass back in as far as possible and then jam it by slipping some wall tiles between the glass and the wood underneath which was still fairly solid.

That has worked for now


We needed to get everything out of there before we took it apart - or before it fell down.



Half way to clearing it out


A job that was too hard for me was clearing the sand and gravel out of the big propagator at the end of the greenhouse and it now fills thirteen buckets to the top and as it is wet, from the plants being watered, I guess it weighs about half a ton!


The old power board needed to be disconnected and removed


Very modern








We shall be taking the whole thing down on Monday and couldn't do it earlier because there is a leak in the road and the water authority had projected that they wouldn't have done their digging and reinstatement of the road until this weekend(right outside the entrance to our driveway). Then an emergency happened and they are now not going to start until Thursday. So our skip should be arriving on Monday.

The concrete plinths that the greenhouse stands on will also need to be skipped - there's about 60ft length of it. The self seeded ferns in the greenhouse can then be safely removed.


The new greenhouse arrives mid November which will give us a chance to level any sections of paving that might have moved over the last 50 years.

The installers are coming early December and then we shall have to run new power and refill the propagator and run all the cables and thermostats. We shall not replace the smaller (3' x 2') propagator.

 

20' x 10'

Yes, gutters come with it but they are much narrower. The old one has normal roof gutters but as the new one will be aluminium they will only be a couple of inches wide. The rain barrel that I have with the old greenhouse is, I think, a 50 gallon one. I shall keep that.

 

Although we are getting an aluminium one we didn't like the metal look so are having a black one which, we think, will fit in OK where it is as it is tucked away - if a 20' greenhouse can possibly be tucked away

 

We saw the black one at the local centre that they rent in a big garden centre. We preferred it.

https://www.greenhousepeople.co.uk/...MIjJvBjNHBkAMV45RQBh1lBTWMEAAYASAAEgIjM_D_BwE

They have a lot of centres around the country. The colour we are having they call anthracite and it was on offer at nearly £2000 cheaper than the green. As we are needing a large one we are going for one of the much sturdier ones. That isn't necessary for smaller ones.