I'll definitely report my findings.

I do expect them to fail sooner rather than later. I'm thinking when they do fail, I'll forget about replacing them and instead get a heavy duty fan for one wall and a vent on the other side set on a thermostat.

That's pretty much what I do, Dave. Fans, fans, fans. Vents are most ineffective at best, allowing little air movement.

>> But it doesn't stop him from playing around while he is supposed to be holding the ladder steady

Maybe you could find an empty paint can. Carry it up the ladder with you and tie it to a rung, then pry the lid off and make sure he sees that it's right over his head.

If he still shakes the ladder after that, you'll have to buy a new can of paint and pour it on his head.

I went to Lowes yesterday and bought all the goodies I needed. I was shocked at how cheap the 1/2" EMT pipe is!! Less than $2 for a ten foot pipe. I got all the screws, bolts, washers, nuts, L brackets, etc and am ready to go.

Today I put the wood fence posts on the C shaped foundation and yes, it made a huge difference in the feel of the greenhouse. It really locked it down onto the foundation. I highly recommend that step. I used pressure treated 6 foot long fence slats from Lowes (around $2.25 each). I bought 8 of them and cut them to fit. I did have to cut out where the nuts are in their way. You'll see what I mean when you get to that step.

As for the rest of the reinforcements, I have decided to put the roof panels on first. Reason being: once I put the EMT pipe from wall to wall, I will no longer be able to put my ladder in the greenhouse! The pipes will be in the way. So I'm going to put the roof panels on, including caulking them from the outside. I can do that by standing on my ladder with my upper body poking out through the adjacent opening in the root. When that's done, on the same day I will immediately put the pipes up and that'll finish my reinforcements. Then I'll finish the wall panels and can call this project done (at least, for the moment! I still need to contemplate heat and fans!)

>> I was shocked at how cheap the 1/2" EMT pipe is!! Less than $2 for a ten foot pipe.

Me, too. I think it is cheaper than PVC for equal stiffness. And you can bend it into rigid shapes without heat.

Dave, if you have not yet bought the silicone, I got mine a very clear 100% for about 2.28 a tube and sealed all of mine on all the roof and outside walls. It took about 10 tubes. But I feel it was well worth the 25.00 and extra time.

Great progess, Dave! You'll be done in no time! You're building it a lot faster than I thought possible. Now I have hope I can build mine before next winter! Can you show me a picture of the washers you found please? I was unable to locate neoprene washers in bulk at our Lowes.

Txtea said:Dave, if you have not yet bought the silicone, I got mine a very clear 100% for about 2.28 a tube and sealed all of mine on all the roof and outside walls. It took about 10 tubes. But I feel it was well worth the 25.00 and extra time.

I have bough the caulk but I didn't go with silicon. I went instead with clear latex caulk. It's not too late to change this; should I take the latex caulk back and replace it with silicon caulk?

ShadyGreenThumb said:Can you show me a picture of the washers you found please? I was unable to locate neoprene washers in bulk at our Lowes.

I bought them from Lowes and when I got home and checked the blog's "Adding the panels" page I noticed I had bought exactly the same ones as they had. I can't figure out how to link to the image so I'll reupload it here:



Both of those boxes are exactly what I got from Lowes. They were in the hardware aisle in the "Specialty" section. They were not in the bulk section and you're stuck buying them in these little containers. Pretty expensive, too.

You definitely want to use silicon, Dave. Latex won't hold up well and is not as flexible or waterproof like silicone. Silicone costs more but is worth the additional expense. Be sure you get silicon labeled for outdoor use.

Yes I also would use silicone and did use it on mine.

Alright, I'll do it. Thanks for the heads up.

Got the silicon! Now off to work on the greenhouse while we have good temperatures.

Used right at two tubes of silicon for the roof. I'm being pretty generous with it. The roof is on and I'm now working on the EMT conduit.

@Dave I hope you got your greenhouse work done. We had some very spring-like weather today. It is about to turn cold again. I have a question. The box with my greenhouse is stored in the garage for the time being. while I hope to open it soon, I noticed it has a "This Side Up" arrow. Well, you might have seen my garage. It is full to the brim with plants for winter protection. I have to turn the box on it's side to give me room to get to the plants to water them. Do you see the This Side Up-thing as an important thing? I mean, am I putting too much pressure on say, the panels??

I don't know why the box has a "this side up" sign because I don't see anything that would be hurt by being upside down. The panels are all arranged nicely inside the panels box and it seems to me could be stored in any direction.

We got a lot done yesterday. Unfortunately I had to go to town twice to get stuff and that swallowed a lot of my time. But we got the 3 EMT braces on. It took us all afternoon to do that. Cutting the pipe, bolting on the L brackets, then getting the whole thing up on the greenhouse frame. It's a time consuming process because you keep trying different ways until you're happy. We ended up taking a pipe up and down 3 times before we were happy with it. I'll take pictures of what we ended up doing with the conduits.

I still want to run one conduit from front to back, under the 3 side conduits. And I still need to stiffen the front and back wall.

We had some serious wind here yesterday and with the roof on, the greenhouse was really catching the wind. I'm pleased to say the frame never budged or moved a bit.

When we were putting together our Charley's greenhouse the wind took it down before we could finish. Bent some framework so we had to straighten and put up again. Not fun.

I understand your fear of the wind. When I was putting mine together, we were having gust up to 50 mph. Got it all up with little difficulty.

Since it has been up have had gust up to 68mph and no problems, fingers all crossed. But you will finish in no time now and be so very proud.

We have the HFGH 10 X 12 put it up a few years ago in 2010. Ric could definitely give you more information on all the extras we added to make it stronger and nicer. He also found a blog that was hugely informative and helpful. I can say that we are pleased with ours. We poured an insulated concrete floor as a base. We painted it dark color to add more solar gain and mounted pvc decking boards to attach the GH to the foundation no wood rot. The center of the floor is bricked and that provides drainage and we can pull up the bricks if we need to access the water hydrant. We placed it in the middle lower end of the Veggie Garden. We also added an arbor and brick walkway leading down to the GH. We did the foil wrap edges with pin holes and not only clipped in the panels but used clear silicone as well and we haven't lost one yet. Ric added the electrical conduit pipe for more support and it makes for a great spot to hang baskets and even space for a few trays. We replaced one of the back panels with a lift out plywood door that we remove in the summer and are planning to add a head house at that end of the GH in the future.







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Great photos! Thank you for sharing, Holly.

In your second to last photo there, it looks like your vertical conduits go all the way to the floor. Is that true? Do you find that they get in the way?

Yes they do go all the way to the floor and we don't really feel that they create a problem. They run right down thru the shelving out close to the edge. Since they are bolted in you can take them out to move them if you would have a reason to. They come down about 3ft from the side walls. Ric added extra bolts to the wall channels to add extra wall mounted shelves if we wanted to. I the last pic you can see the wall mounted narrow shelves. They were picked up from a thrift store just a basic closet shelf. The heavier duty lower shelves are built on a free standing 4 X 4 frame.