That first photo with the L bracket is identical to how mine are connected, too.

I like how Ric attached a horizontal conduit in the ceiling and then attached the vertical conduits to that one with a strap. I very well might do exactly that. You've given me good ideas. Thank you for sharing!

How do you keep your door closed?

Thanks for the great pictures, Holly! I like visuals. They will surely help once I get to the building stage of our own greenhouse. I've concluded, the more cheap conduits we can use, the more structurally sound the building will be. I am planning on a web of EMT throughout our greenhouse! May I ask, do you remove the plywood simply for more circulation in the summer? Cute handles ,btw!

Ric was reading thru the posts earlier and he will post at some time when he gets a chance. He can answer more specific questions than I can. He did use the same blog you have read when he was preparing to build ours.
Dave do you mean the small set in door in the back of the GH? It has a bar with wing nuts and you just remove the nuts and set it in and out. It isn't hinged, in the summer we just let it open most of the time. When we get around to building a headhouse on the back we will put in a different type of door.
The big double doors in the front of the GH we have a large metal spring clip (much like a large clothespin)and we just clip them together. We will be replacing the large front doors they leak heat pretty badly at the edges and Ric wants to replace them with a used sliding glass door that he picked up. I wasn't too keen on the idea but with the weather we have been having this year I am thinking it might be a good idea. We put on two of the automatic vent openers but they didn't quite close right, something about the way they mounted. So he removed them. I think he is looking at vent fans for the wall instead. We have one side set up for mostly flats and smaller pots the other side is for our larger tropicals.

With our winds yesterday, one of my vent windows "flew"away, nowhere to be found...

Clipping the door closed it how I'm doing it, too. I have a pretty wide gap at the top and the bottom so I am using two clips.

I finished the conduits, and got the panels on today!

1" conduit from the front to the rear:


The big conduit connected above the door. I had used a 2x2 board to stiffen that wall:


One of the small "left to right" conduits:


Outside shots:

Looks great! We didn't do anything like that to our greenhouse but we may have to just try to do some of it now. Sure looks like great reinforcing. (the other GH, not the one with the missing vent window! )

Congratulations, Dave!! You did it! It looks wonderful!

Dave, I see where your end to end conduit would stiffen the ends very well. I used a piece of emt top corner to corner on the back wall but was afraid it would interfere over the doors so I purchased a piece of 1" aluminum angle to bolt right into the frame above the doors. I believe in Mudhouses (MH) blog they also used wood. With the level of humidity and freezing thawing here in Pa. I wanted no wood.
I substituted longer bolts in the frame in many places and added bolts in other places to accommodate any added features and changes. I took MHs sketch of the bolts and added my own for other things. I believe if you were careful you could drill a hole in the T track of the uprights so you could tilt a bolt head into the slot. I have a couple of places I need to do that, and will let you know.
As to the vents and Bayliss openers, I plan to use a more rigid frame addition to ensure they track better and close more solidly. I did have one vent blow out in the wind and found adding a safety device like sash chain or even parachute cord stopped this and keeping a little extra weight on the vents kept them from "trembling" in the wind.
I went and bought bubble wrap today but never got to install any, I also use foam panels to reduce heat loss. I'll post some more on that later.
Do you have Tractor Supply Co. stores down there?

That's great stuff, Ric.

Yes, we do have a tractor supply, right in our own little town. It's quite convenient.

On the T tracks: what I did was used bolt cutters on the heads of regular bolts to snip off two sides. Then I used my axe grinder to grind down the edges that I cut off so I ended up with a bolt whose head looked just like a T. That then fit right inside the channels in the aluminum frame. Put it in, give it a small twist and you're ready to add washer and nut to tighten it in.

So that's how I connected my wood and conduits "after the fact."

Your 1" aluminum over the door is better than my wood, but, at this point I was ready to just put something up and be done with it. I very well may replace that wood with a 1/2" EMT later. After all, they are less than $2 per 10' stick.

That sounds good Dave and a cinch nut would be very effective in holding it in place a rarely be in the way. I don't know what your heat requirement will be but TSC sells a 20k BTU gas heater like I have for less than $200. Mine requires no electric, as many do as well as an O2 depletion sensor, a must for power outages. TSC actually has a full line of heaters and being close is the key, and you're not paying extra for the word greenhouse.

That's a great tip, Ric, thank you! I will look at TSC's heater selection.

I cleared off the deck for cleaning today. But it was too rainy to put down the chemical. It has to be totally dry before I start. It may be a few days before I can start. Here is a picture of the approx 14 x 16' deck. I am thinking of bringing the GH closest to the edge of the deck in the foreground to allow some pretty planting in the soil around one side of it at least, and to keep the GH from being seen from the street. I will have all other sides accessible both for building the GH then later for potted trees and wheelbarrow etc storage. The GH is 12 x 10' with the door on the left side of the photo. An approx. 5-6 ft. 3 ft wide ramp will be built to access the GH on the far left. What do you think about this placement??

A really, really, REALLY rough drawing without a stylus at that! I asked my DD for a stylus. She didn't have one. She said, "...because it's not 2002!" :rofl:

I think that is going to look really nice sitting in that location. I see a lot of big trees in the background, how is the light on that deck will it get much shade?
Ric picked up some weather stripping and added it to the frame where the doors are and it made a big difference much better than before.

As you can see in Holly's photo above, I've also started adding bubble wrap to the panels as insulation. The super low temps of the past weeks have made it necessary to try and make the interior temps more uniform. In studying videos about using bubble wrap there are claims of up to 50% reduced heat loss on insulated panels. I believe it is having an effect. The one night of sub-zero temps with wind prompted me to add 2 small electric heaters to stabilize temps. When sizing my heater I found that I needed a 14k heater, the one I installed is 20k, should have been more than enough.Next winter I plan to try a solar blanket to the roof as well.

Looks like you've chosen a great orientation there, Cheryl. This is exciting!

Holly, We have practically all shade in our back yard. But in the Spring, that area gets some very nice sunshine.By the time the trees fill out, it is pretty dense shade from the forest and the neighbor, not to mention our own trees in the back yard.. But we think with a bit of added help that shade might help protect the poly carbonate panels. The average life span seems to be 4 years in full sun and windy conditions. I'm shooting for 10 years in the shade with the help of a coat of UV spray. Our main use for the GH is for winter plant protection. And maybe a writer home for the turtle.

Eric, I know the feeling. I got my electric bill today and it was double from last month will also be adding solar cover next year.

Yup, me too. But then again, with the arctic freeze I consider myself lucky I didn't lose all my plants.

We got the benches in! We got them all laid out and I took the photos before I screwed them to the 2x6 framing. I have since screwed them all in and we're happy as can be.

I bought the slats from a local cedar mill. They are 1x4 (true dimensions).