buying and building a commercial greenhouse

Do-it-yourself projects such as greenhouse or shadehouse builds and related topics.
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hob
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buying and building a commercial greenhouse

Post by hob »

OK so you decide to buy a greenhouse, the first decision is where to put it, the optimum position will be somewhere to the south of the house so its not in the shade of the house (northern hemisphere) a greenhouse would look silly in the front garden so house orientation has to be considered..........basically where it would fit best with maximum sunlight.

Next would be size, how big to fit the space, and the cost must be considered, first priority is cost, how big can I afford, second priority can I fit it in the space I have :?

OK with that decided, and I would recommend buying the biggest you can afford that will fit the space you have.

the next thing is to order one, there are lots of ways to do this, garden centres sell them, or you can buy them on the web.
A google search will find thousands of places willing to sell you one :shock:

OK so you already decided on what you can afford ............. don't forget to add the cost of foundations, never included in the cost of buying, does your property slope? what type of floor do you want? do you want to insulate the base? all these factors can add a huge amount to your budget :shock:

OK so you factor that in to the cost, time to order and build..............

foundations will need to be levelled and square or things will not fit :shock: Image

you might need to brick up to get the foundations level
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next stage would be to add insulation if you want to
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after that you need to add a floor, in this case concrete Image

the big day arrives and your greenhouse is delivered :mrgreen: first read the instructions twice :shock: if you need to get some help
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lay out all the bits and prepare to assemble
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follow the instructions

assemble as required
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another cost to factor in is where to put the plants ...............

so now you have a shiny new greenhouse, where do the plants go :?

right back to stage one, did you add the cost of staging and shelving ? ......................no? ok can you build your own? if not you need to factor this in too :roll:

time to add the glass, choices when you bought .............. horticultural glass, comes in small sections with clips in-between............cheaper than toughened glass which can be bought full length.......... metal clips or bar capping :?:

bar capping holds the glass more securely but costs more :?

the finished item can cost a lot more than you budgeted for :?

but can add a big smile factor

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if you have to worry about the money you can't afford it :( .........if you love the plants you can :P
incurable cactoholic
growing rebutia's with a mix of others.
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m4rkz0r
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Post by m4rkz0r »

That's awesome hob! I'm jealous. Put some pics up when you get all your plants in there.
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Harriet
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Post by Harriet »

Is that the green house you built first? I noticed in the other post that you had wood benches in the other greenhouse. Have you noticed a difference between those and the aluminum shelves in this post? Does the metal help by reflecting light on the lower shelves, or is shading a problem?
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hob
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Location: sfk england z 8

Post by hob »

Harriet wrote:Is that the green house you built first? I noticed in the other post that you had wood benches in the other greenhouse. Have you noticed a difference between those and the aluminium shelves in this post? Does the metal help by reflecting light on the lower shelves, or is shading a problem?
yes that's the first one built in 2006, the lower shelves are mainly used to store spare pots ect.


i made this topic to show others some of the methods and pitfalls in buying and building a commercial built greenhouse kit.
incurable cactoholic
growing rebutia's with a mix of others.
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