Greenhouse: glass or plastic

Oops, thought that was a cricket bat and wicket.....

 

That is excellent advice about the vents. I left the manual ones on mine and use them to lock those shut and just discinnect the bottom arm of the automatic one when I see tbe wind picking up.

 

Forgot to mention that if you are buying a new one, the system will have channels appropriate for the type of pane you choose. I couldn't pull the panels out of mine without dismantling the frame. I will be doing this when I switch the smaller greenhouse from twinwall to poly.

no way to get the panels out otherwise....and it will probably take me at least 6 hours to do it.

I secure the vent in high winds to keep it from getting bent or stressed .

 

Aha, yes I'd also forgotten that you don't have the nasty temperature extremes we do. We're -23c tonight and the same tomorrow.... poly doesn't care if you need to pour hot water around the handle in order to get it to twist and let you in....

 

Polycarbonate doesn't need replacing because it does not break. I am swapping out the panels for cosmetic reasons only. Kinda like rearranging the furniture... you know how we gals can be

 

I've got 10mm polycarbonate in one side of my garden greenhouse, I changed it from glass some years ago to accommodate the neighbours kids that had a "thing" about footballs at the time.

Anyway, because its twin wall its also got a degree of insulation, so when we get one of our bone biting cold nights, -5C , any plants touching it dont get damaged, whereas on the glass side leaves touching the glass get frosted.

Only thing I have against polycarbonate is that it doesn't allow as much direct light through, but that depends on what you intend growing.

 

This is a sales pic of the one I call polycarbonate. It is crystal clear. I added window insulation (again clear) to make it more insulated.


This is a picture of my smaller greenhouse which currently has twinwall poly that is not as clear but is initially more insulating. When I bought this smaller version, it did not come with the clear plastic. This is the one that I will be replacing all of the twinwall, for cosmetic reasons only. Actually, I will probably leave the back wall as is to block the view of the hillbillies next door to my kitchen window....


Both are incredibly tough. Things bounce off of them and they don't blow out.

If I lived in a warmer climate I would be very tempted to have a glass greenhouse but... well, it's minus umpty ump here right now...

 

Ok lori maybe I got the wrong end of the stick.
I'm not really up on the stuff they use theses days.

To me polycarbonate has always been the kind of twin wall or sometimes triple wall stuff that you show in the second pic.

The first pic, and I'm only guessing is what I would call acrylic sheet, but I could be wrong as I'm not a plastics expert.

Would be interested to know how the insulation works on the first pic.

I'm sure that is not your bottle brush and jacaranda in pic one , at minus 23 they would be toast.

 

I used a product that is plastic sheets about the same thickness as cling film.I double side taped it to the inside frame of each payne. Then used a hairdryer to shrink it up tight and super clear. It has proven itself to work somewhat. I also have insulated flooring. The thickness of that is 2" at the sides where the pots sit and where the heated seedling mats will be too. The middle floor is only 1 layer of insulation thick, 1".



I turned on the gas heater for a few minutes to heat up the inside to about 50f. You can see the snow on the outside which hasn't melted because of the film having provided an insulating pocket of air. You can see where I didn't quite get the plastic film smooth, otherwise you wouldn't know it was there. The sun will be around soon to melt the snow. All of the electrics run off of solar panels. The sun hits the panel, the power goes through dc timers to dc fans and run at ten minute intervals (so they don't burn out their motors) and this all keeps the hot air circulating.

 

I think it is all just the terminology differences either side of the pond. It's all fun to talk about anyway!

 

Quite impressive Lori, I was wondering how you heated a greenhouse when its minus 23 outside.