The Greenhouse

[Buddychrist]

I started out to build a moderately nice greenhouse a little over a year ago. Little did I know that my ideas would pull through into a Mecca euphoric monstrosity it has become today so without further hesitation here is my terra-nova!

http://i.imgur.com/9TH8d.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/eMog3.jpg

It is completely self sustainable from electronic timers for humidity, water filtration, water misters for humidity control, automatic temperature controlled fan that is adjustable to 1*F accuracy, automatic vents that open when the fan comes on and after the photo was taken I have added two more vents that open for 20 minutes during mid day, and of course the raised cinder block beds!

What do y'all think?

[Buddychrist]

http://i.imgur.com/T0p5S.jpg

Full filtration down to 1:16 rated microns

[Buddychrist]

http://i.imgur.com/bb4cZ.jpg

Automated fan with temp control

[Echo2]

Nice....are you using it for ornamental or food?

Have you had any issues with the lime leeching out of the blocks?

- - - Updated - - -

What are you using for heat?

Can all controls be manually over run if the power dies?

[Evolver]

Wow nice!!! You could even run this on solar with a battery bank and inverted power if the lights go out. How do you get your water? City, well...

[Buddychrist]

Nice....are you using it for ornamental or food?

Have you had any issues with the lime leeching out of the blocks?

- - - Updated - - -

What are you using for heat?

Can all controls be manually over run if the power dies?

All food no ornamental here! I haven't had any problems with lime at all. The head is ran by a dual head propane heater that I run during the night in the winter.

Yes all of the controls have overrides so I can do it manually!

[Buddychrist]

Wow nice!!! You could even run this on solar with a battery bank and inverted power if the lights go out. How do you get your water? City, well...

All of my water comes from my deep well for my house. I have been contemplating solar power for a while so once I get done and back to work I will look into the price and how much power I would need to make it completely self sustainable off the power grid.

[Evolver]

Again very nice!!! You do nice and clean work with redundancy in mind. How old are you? lol you don't need to answer that because I already know. :)

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Your filtering the water for the misters correct?

[Buddychrist]

Again very nice!!! You do nice and clean work with redundancy in mind. How old are you? lol you don't need to answer that because I already know. :)

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Your filtering the water for the misters correct?

Lol yeah I think when I take my time building a project I do pretty good for a 22 year old haha.

Yes I am filtering the water for both the misters and I also have a standard Waterhose with a extended pole shower type sprayer that I use daily to keep the beds nice and moist!

Currently it's off season for me and I am working on getting the dirt mixture to the right PH levels.

[Buddychrist]

Here is a current photo of the greenhouse with the two added vents

http://i.imgur.com/7Liaw.jpg

[Buddychrist]

Today I put a 40' shallow well in with a pump. Pretty easy to put down just needed to make sure I had enough water volume going down and I think I have hit an aquifer because I don't have to barely pump and I do not have to prime it at all.
http://i.imgur.com/XqoHP.jpg

That's what I like to see!
http://i.imgur.com/OjgGd.jpg

All it needs is to be cut down to a nice waist height and install the 4x4 to hold it up! I'm all about water sources on my land and even now before I raise it up out of the sediment layer and pump it to completely fresh it is clean drinkable water that will work when SHTF. But always ill boil it first just to be safe.

[Willie51]

Man, I am very impressed!!!! .....and jealous!:) Great job there bud!!

[Echo2]

Was this a hoop kit?

[Evolver]

Are you getting a sulfur smell at all from ether your deep or shallow well? The reason why I ask is because we are to the south and east of you and have a high salt and sulfur content in our deep well.

[Buddychrist]

Was this a hoop kit?

I built the bender and a frame that I installed into the back of my truck bed to bend the pipes. They do sell benders off of eBay and I just matched their design from the pictures.



Are you getting a sulfur smell at all from ether your deep or shallow well? The reason why I ask is because we are to the south and east of you and have a high salt and sulfur content in our deep well.

I'm lucky enough to be on dirt with a thin pack of clay about 6ft down and then it's sand down to the hard pack at 20-25ft so the sulfur is not bad at all and I have lived here so long I can't even tell when the water softener on my deep well is empty. I have no sulfur smell at all out of the shallow hand pump well because of it being filtered out by the sand layer.

They are really easy to put down if you would like me to post an intructable on it.

[Buddychrist]

Man, I am very impressed!!!! .....and jealous!:) Great job there bud!!

Thanks man if you want me to take closer pictures of the framework I can and I can also find an eBay link to the bender that I replicated and built out of my shop.

When you put it up it looks terrible but once you put up the tensioner bands and the bracing bars after a few days it comes out perfectly square.

[helomech]

Looks great, please post up as many pics as you can. I am about to build a 30X100 foot greenhouse.

[4suchatimeasthis]

Wow, I am super impressed! Awesome thread, and great pictures!

[Taz Baby]

Thanks man if you want me to take closer pictures of the framework I can and I can also find an eBay link to the bender that I replicated and built out of my shop.

When you put it up it looks terrible but once you put up the tensioner bands and the bracing bars after a few days it comes out perfectly square.


I think most of us on here are planning on having a greenhouse if they don't already, (I don't yet.) So yes we can all use any info from someone who already built one and how they did it. Don't forget to tell us the do's and don'ts on it to. I for one like to learn from other peoples mistakes as well as my own.

[Buddychrist]

When I get outside I will take plenty of pictures for everyone of the framework and tensioner bands!

The one sure fire way to make sure you have perfect assembly is to bend one bar and from then on every bar you bend you make sure it matches the first bar exactly!

I haven't had much luck with ladybugs because of my vent and fan system but if you spray them down with a Pepsi and water mix they will stay down for a few weeks.

There can't be too many bracing bars and you really have to play with the timer on the misters to get the humidity just right but after a few weeks you will get it perfected. It should feel like a warm day at the beach.

[Buddychrist]

http://i.imgur.com/ttZZm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4wyZO.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/Qjevn.jpg

[Echo2]

Thanks man if you want me to take closer pictures of the framework I can and I can also find an eBay link to the bender that I replicated and built out of my shop.

When you put it up it looks terrible but once you put up the tensioner bands and the bracing bars after a few days it comes out perfectly square.

OH OH OH......what kind of shop?....:)

[Buddychrist]

OH OH OH......what kind of shop?....:)

Oh lord here we go!
Full metalworking and wood working shop complete with:

3hp Air compressor with 80 gallon tank
http://i.imgur.com/4DUqC.jpg

Band pipe cutter and grinder
http://i.imgur.com/qSBaH.jpg

Drill press and welding table
http://i.imgur.com/ubncE.jpg

If anyone is thinking about asking... Yes that is a 15lb grappling hook! Do I have any reason for having one? Nope it came with a Jon boat I traded a jet ski for.

[Buddychrist]

Mig welder
http://i.imgur.com/Dp0aD.jpg

More tools than you can imagine
http://i.imgur.com/FUmLO.jpg

And if you take a step outside a miller trailblazer welder generator on a trailer that I built for it to be mobile
http://i.imgur.com/NGhac.jpg

Yeah I think I have a decent shop put together. It's not clean but it is definitely efficient like a shop should be!

[Buddychrist]

Before I left for the family emergency I finished off my shallow well before I left.

What do y'all think?
http://i.imgur.com/pvUmr.jpg

[Evolver]

Nice work there Buddy. I'm so impressed that I'm to the point of being skeptical because of your age. Has your dad helped you with any of this? Sry if I'm getting too personal but...

[Buddychrist]

Nice work there Buddy. I'm so impressed that I'm to the point of being skeptical because of your age. Has your dad helped you with any of this? Sry if I'm getting too personal but...

In fire college they taught us building construction and I worked with my brother as an assistant when he was a contractor for fleetwood.

My dad taught me a fair share but for being 22 I learned allot by trial and error and then retrial and error again until I finally get it right and then I remember it and write it down to refresh my memory!

Edit: Now my father did help me with the Controller box for the fan because the wiring wasn't exactly straight forward but otherwise it's all me.

[Willie51]

^Buddy,
Your Dad taught you well. For a 22 year old, you are amazing and I would say way ahead of most 35 year olds. When I see your work, I am speechless. :rolleyes:

[Buddychrist]

^Buddy,
Your Dad taught you well. For a 22 year old, you are amazing and I would say way ahead of most 35 year olds. When I see your work, I am speechless. :rolleyes:

Thanks man, I hope to start some new project that's on the horizon but I don't know what it is yet!

[Evolver]

Nuf said and welcome to the Colony. Ditto on what Willie said and your farther must be proud. I'm looking forward to see your next project so get back to work young man. :p

[Echo2]

Come on guys....22 is young...but not a baby.

Heck....I had been in the work force for 7 years by the time I was 22.

Went from pushing pizza to hotel kitchen and roomservice to metal fab shop and self employed....all the while working for a carpenter and a mason and mowing lawns on the side.

I just never go into partying hard.....especially if there was money to be made.

I was the kid who always had his nose in the middle of a project asking why were they doing it that way.....in retrospect.....I probably was pretty annoying.....but I guess not much has changed on that end....:)

[bacpacker]

Nice work Buddy. What depth is your pump pulling water from?

[Buddychrist]

Nice work Buddy. What depth is your pump pulling water from?

The 2" pipe is down 40' and the 1 3/4" is down 8ft. It's still pulling sediment after ~20 gallons but that's to be expected for the next month or two while I pump it full of water to break up the sediment and then pull it out with the pump. I'm guesstimating a 4' bowl so far. I really want to double that.

Edit: This is all because of the high water table in Florida. There are well's that are hundreds of feet deep that don't even hit water all over the mountains.

I also have the remains of an old house and I am hunting there to find the open well that has to be near that old home. Out here you couldn't survive without a well and based on the age of the bricks there has to be an open well out there somewhere.

[helomech]

Come on guys....22 is young...but not a baby.

Heck....I had been in the work force for 7 years by the time I was 22.

Went from pushing pizza to hotel kitchen and roomservice to metal fab shop and self employed....all the while working for a carpenter and a mason and mowing lawns on the side.

I just never go into partying hard.....especially if there was money to be made.

I was the kid who always had his nose in the middle of a project asking why were they doing it that way.....in retrospect.....I probably was pretty annoying.....but I guess not much has changed on that end....:)

Yeah, by 22 I had a wife and kid and done 5 years in the military, and had been working for 7 years total.

[Buddychrist]

Yeah, by 22 I had a wife and kid and done 5 years in the military, and had been working for 7 years total.

Well I have a wife, son, 3 years FD, 2 years contracting, and a year or so of mowing lawns.

[helomech]

Well I have a wife, son, 3 years FD, 2 years contracting, and a year or so of mowing lawns.

Not knocking you, you do great work and seem to be providing great for your family. Just giving some perspective since it seems some think 22 is real young. By 22 many people have lots of life experiences. Keep it up, you are doing way better than most your age. Hoping my kids do as well.

The older we get it 22 seems younger and younger. We just have to think back to when we where that age.

[bacpacker]

I don't think anyone was knocking Buddy. It's just some 22, hell I know some folks in their 40 that don't produce the quality of work Buddy has shown. The talent to be able to perform work like this is one thing. To be able to produce high quality work is something else.

Kuddo's Buddy.

[4suchatimeasthis]

100 years ago an accomplished 22 yr old husband and father was the norm. These days you are lucky if your 22 yr old isnt out there "butt-chugging". Damn kids these days......;) Good on you, Buddy!