New greenhouse

[Acid John]

I am going to get this one http://www.ukgreenhousesales.co.uk/Gree ... nhouse.htm and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with it? I know someone who could build me a strong retaining wall so it could be buried in the ground thus saving some heating costs in winter. I will just add that I've reached that age where bending down to look at a plant under the staging is dangerous for my health! Any thoughts however forthright are most welcome.

[Lithos]

No experience with it Acid John. Just pure jelousy - on behalf of us window ledge growers. with dylexiia

[Martin]

Not this model but I have their 20 by 10 ft supreme in green with partition and it's a great greenhouse

M

[lobman]

If by " buried in the ground " you mean one side against a bank , I would certainly recommend a good damp proof membrane in order to keep the brickwork as dry as possible in the winter

[DaveW]

Hi Acid John, I have the 18ft X 12'-6" wide version of that drop down door Elite on 3'-0" high walls (without the spikes on the roof!) and am very pleased with it. My only gripe as I am 5'-11" tall was the doors (around 6'-0" high) are a little too low (normal domestic doors are mostly 6'-6" high) so I used to bang my head as I stepped over the door sill if I did not remember to duck, that was until I raised the door sill up on a course of bricks, which solved my problem and it is no problem stepping over for me as you have to step over greenhouse bottom sliding door tracks anyway.

I too did not want to bend for low stagings and I found glass below staging height not much use anyway so mine is on 3'-0" high concrete block walls (cheaper than brickwork if you are burying it anyway) and my stagings too are 3'-0" high. You really only need to build the walls the same height as you want the top of the stagings, the drop down door frame is adjustable for any wall height from zero to 3'-0" high

Depends if you are erecting it yourself, if so being raised up to around 8'-0"-9'-0" to the ridge and 18'-0"-20'-0" long you will find you need two people to handle the frames, which at 18'-0" to 20'-0" are pretty floppy until joined at the corners. If like mine it comes as a self assembly job simply comprising many lengths of aluminium and a bag of bolts for ease of transport, not ready made up sections like small greenhouses, you need a flat area to bolt them together on. You may also find it handy to hire a tower scaffold to fit the ridge and glaze the top glasses from inside (I borrowed a friends being at that time in the building trade).

Elite gave me a glazing plan with all the glass cuts and quantities so I got a quote for the horticultural glass from my local glass merchant which was significantly cheaper than Elite was charging for it. Therefore I just ordered the aluminium frame from Elite and bought the horticultural glass locally to their glazing plan and that saving paid for automatic roof vent openers etc.

As Lobman says if you are burying the walls you will need to to prevent water leaking through with some form of membrane (heavyweight polythene obtainable at most builders merchants) just as you would a cellar in a house.

One thing you will need is automatic vent openers for the roof vents since they are then too high for you to normally open by hand. I also ordered automatic louvre windows on the side for ventilation. The normal auto-vents from garden centres are OK.

Another thing I would recommend is sealing any potential water leakage gaps in any aluminium greenhouse with clear silicon sealant as you assemble it. So much easier than having to stop a slight water leak later since I have yet to come across an aluminium greenhouse where some gaps in the structure are not evident, whether they actually leak or not in use or only in water driven gale conditions, and our plants are not water tolerant in winter

Anyway good luck, I have been very satisfied with mine.

DaveW

[Paul in Essex]

Another option - I have a 'regular' 20x12 built onto a 3ft wall with a drop door access. This gives extra headroom, should you wish to grow columnars...

[Acid John]

Thank you all for the replies I will get on with supervising the construction. This is mar lady on site yesterday driving a three tonne dumper truck!

[Sue]

Hope you've got a degree in meccano John

[Acid John]

Sue everything always starts out trapezoid then a lot of shouting at it straightens things out!

[Peter]

That's a useful item for shifting stuff about. Acid John - and so's the dumper truck!