Your least favourite greenhouse task.

[Bill]

hi Mike

No makes I am afraid but I have had bright green ones and dark green ones the latter are fine, the bright green ones kept falling out over came that by doubling up on the washers.

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[Herts Mike]

That threw me Bill. I thought you were talking about your Haworthias...

[DaveW]

I presume to dig that amount out Hob must have taken you all of half an hour at most?(:P) Your supposed to go 1 meter down in clay for the footings for a house now I believe! You look like your only 9" down in the topsoil, although good enough for a small aluminium greenhouse.

The footings for my 18ft x 12ft greenhouse go down about 3ft to get on solid clay for the concrete block walls, since the soil had been built up in that area. It was all dug out by hand as well, plus hand-mixed concrete for the strip footings.

Some of us ex building trade date from the days before you ever saw mechanical plant on the sites and everything was dug out by a labourer with a shovel. It certainly kept your weight down, and nobody needed to sign up to a gym as they do these days.

Never mind, think of the satisfaction when you get the greenhouse up and the plants in, so what's a few blisters.

DaveW

[sandi]

My least favourite task is waiting for the green house to be delivered and put up.
:angre:

[Hob]

DaveW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I presume to dig that amount out Hob must have
> taken you all of half an hour at most?(:P) Your
> supposed to go 1 meter down in clay for the
> footings for a house now I believe! You look like
> your only 9" down in the topsoil, although good
> enough for a small aluminium greenhouse.
>
> DaveW

only about 4 inches at one point a little over a foot at another point, as the ground slopes 8 inches one way and about 3 inches the other way
the plan is a 4 inch bed of concrete followed by either 2 or 3 runs of bricks depending on the level, as you say its only going to be a 6 x 6 foot alloy greenhouse.

[DaveW]

If you did not want to plant into the ground you could have put it on a raft (all over concrete slab). Just cleaned the soil off and put some hardcore or road stone over the area and cast a 4" slab on top to just take the greenhouse and also formed the floor as well.

DaveW

[Bill]

It was a metre in my day Dave and yes we had to dig them by hand, no min diggers, mostly lovely London clay::o

I think the current regs say that foundations have to be an appropriate depth and width to the soil conditions i.e. there is no one size fits all any more.

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[Hob]

DaveW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you did not want to plant into the ground you
> could have put it on a raft (all over concrete
> slab). Just cleaned the soil off and put some
> hardcore or road stone over the area and cast a 4"
> slab on top to just take the greenhouse and also
> formed the floor as well.
>
> DaveW

Dave that's how i built my main 8x5 foot greenhouse after levelling the land in a similar way to this one.
[attachment 13655 DSCF0993.JPG]

this one however is by way of a cheap experiment with a part open floor to grow plants in the ground as well. i bought an old 8 x 6 foot greenhouse for 40 quid but it will not fit my small garden so the plan is to remove one bay and make it 6 x 6 feet with 6 x 4 feet slabbed area and a 6 x 2 foot open bed down one side. my main problem is that the garden slopes away from the house and also from right to left so the far left corner of every building area is always a lot lower than the top right.

[Phil_SK]

My flooring consists of the heavy duty weed block fabric. It's extremely easy to put down! The occasional horsetail breaches it but otherwise it's fine

[Thord]

Hi everybody! I put bubblewrap on the outside of the greenhouse,all around and make some flaps for the ventilators.It works well,severe winter and hard winds are no problem and since getting 10mm polycarbonate i have lowered electricity bills with 40% !It´s no fun putting on the bubblewrap because it means winter is coming but on the other hand,removing it in spring is quite another feeling... The thing i really dislike is finding dead plants!:angre:
By the way,I´m using this bubblewrap for the seventh winter now,and it´s still in very good condition.