Whohoo...arrived Friday. Got it partially installed today and will finish up tomorrow. Now I'm questionning whether I did it right. I put it on the inside with the bubbles facing the polycarbonate panels. Will that reverse the heat?

The allipub clips won't arrive until mid Dec so we used those black office clips as a temporary solution. Nice improvement over the insulation board, bubblewrap and egg crate mattress. Will be interesting to see how effective it is. We cut long pieces the entire length of each side so there is less space with breaks. I'm about to get finished with the improvements on this new GH ...now about that second 6 x 8 we are going to attach....hum. Soon.

The pool service company said that the smooth side goes outward, and the bubble-side towards the inside.

Carol where did you get your solar pool cover from ?

MJSPONIES Got it from Leisure Living on EBay. It is 12 ml and is 14 x 28 for $81 including shipping. It is sort of small bubbles. Its working great. We are in central Texas and it can occasionally get down to 22 but we aren't as cold as some of the northern states. Some folks in the colder areas get 16 ml which is more expensive and I think heavier. I liked what I got as it is flexible and easy to drape and work with and it seems to be doing the job for us. They have smaller sizes too. My GH is only 6 x 8 and I have lots left over for some cold frames and a small pop up green house.

Do you have those vents on the roof that automatically open? How do you deal with those?

DAVE we have the roof vents but not automatic. We covered them over with the solar cover. Husband added screen to part of door and back wall. Polycarbonate panel clips on and off as needed for fresh air. Will be cutting hole in solar cover on back wall and adding a flap that can be closed or opened. So we will have cross ventilation. When frosts are over we will remove solar cover and can use roof vents again.

I have absolutely no problem with both my automatic vents and manual vents opening with the solar blanket material covering them, and I am using 16 mil blanket material, the heaviest material available. Heck, my free-standing GH even has TWO layers of 16 mil material over the manual roof vent, and it can still be easily opened. What's the deal with vents?

We put the cover on pretty tight. I can maybe open the vent an inch max. I guess I'm not sure where the air would go anyway since the roof is entirely covered? Kind of puzzled by that.

Not sure what I did different than you Ken. Would be interesting to know. My GH is much smaller than yours so maybe with the pitch of the roof there is more space on yours. Dunno.

Two things to mention here. The vent(s) only need to open when it gets hot in the GH, which means the sun is intense enough to heat the GH at or above 90 F. That sun's heat softens the solar blanket material and it stretches. My GH with a root vent has corrugated polycarbonate panels, and that allows air-flow down both sides, since only the sides of the solar blanket is screwed down. The two ends at the ground-level are free, with only cross-wiring to hold it in place. Certainly there won't be a great amount of air-flow, but there is some. During the fall/winter months, the GH's just don't get all that hot anyway. I simply open the doors when necessary.

I also have auto-vents on the upper ends of the GH's, and those louvers open quite easily, allowing air to flow out of the GH's.

I open my vents daily via a ladder. I can't wait to get the openers installed!! My GH reaches 80º and above daily, so far. So it is part of my afternoon and evening routine. But being my first winter, I won't know what happens in Jan. and Feb. when our "real" winter hits. But already, I notices the position of the winter sun shines directly on the GH. All I know is that if my vents weren't available to me to open this time of year, things would burn to a crisp at over 100º. Currently, it is 83º with two vents open and both doors open and a fan going. I watch it carefully and mist when the humidity drops.

For me the vents open even in the winter except on the very coldest days. If the sun is out, that's enough to cause the vents to open. They are on automatic openers which I love.

That's good to know, Dave. I will get my auto openers installed tout suite starting today.

Anyone have an modern unused waterbed? The kind that has small pockets that can be filled with water after being put on greenhouse frame. Then, you could turn the heat on as needed. They're supposed to heat up faster than the old beds. Wonder if that would work. Never had a waterbed, so i could be totally whacked. No cutting holes for vents, either.

What would be the weight of a waterbed placed over greenhouse framing? How many waterbeds would be necessary for even a fairly small, 10x12' greenhouse?

If you got a softside, it would weigh 1133.86 lbs., and measure 65"x69"x7", so you would need 3. That's a lot of weight. I'm not sure if you would need to fill completely. Also, they are not sun resistant, I'm sure. So you would need to put something over it. And, now i was thinking that waterbeds don't seem to put out any heat into the room, they retain it. So, bad idea, sorry.

Those were kind of my thoughts, but never having had a waterbed, I really didn't know anything about them.

Me either. I was telling dean about doing that, and how we were discussing it. He said only an idiot would think of doing that as it would crush the gh. (No, I didnt tell him it was my idea)

Funny!

dRDAWG I noticed today that my solar cover has loosened up a bit. After a few days in the Sun, it is more pliable, & I am able to open the roof vents a little bit more. And with that, I think the air escapes out the top near the roof ridge. So it's working for me.

SHADYGREEN I wonder if you could figure out a way to rig up a rope to those roof vents so you can do the last little pull to tightly closed them. When we put on the automatic vents in our Harbor Freight greenhouse, they would close, but they still didn't latch tightly. That same ongoing problem with not being formed quite right to begin with. But if I had to get on a ladder, I certainly would get some sort of hook up so I didn't have to do that. I'll be curious to know if you find the automatic vent closers to be working. I would like to put them on mine if I could get some that worked.