Passive Solar Greenhouse Plans_01
Researched and written by Jim Thomas
Insulated Cold Frame is Solution to Many Limitations - High Altitude
(Summer 1996)... Gardening in Flagstaff, Arizona, is a challenge, to say the least. It seems like it is either too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet or too windy for an outside garden to thrive, even for a short time. We live in a climate where seven months of the year we can expect it to freeze at night, and it often does, as well, in the remaining five months which constitute our so-called growing season. The obvious solution to all of this is a greenhouse- a microclimate wherein you can override most of these problems. I decided to have one. I decided this several years ago. With this desire came the realization that I needed to learn some new technologies and I needed to face several decisions, the least of which was whether or not to build my own or to buy a kit or to hire a contractor to build one. A little research revealed some immediate facts of life. First, the cost of buying or building a custom unit was a bit beyond my immediate abilities. I became aware that this single item, the expense of having a professional unit, is a stumbling block for most of us. Most of us who want to garden year around do not have a greenhouse yet because of this single issue. This gave me a second challenge. Since I'd like to see many more people having and using a greenhouse, I wondered if I could find less expensive solutions that would also be solutions for others. Being an "environmentalist," I also had an interest in seeing what is possible using recycled materials as much as possible.
Early in my research, I found that some local fencing companies will either discard, or sell cheaply, pieces of cedar lumber, fence pickets. This gave me a source of building material that is recommended as a building material around gardening. And it is an item slated for the dump or the wood stove as waste, which seems a mistake for such valuable material. I began to acquire this as available and I organized stacks of it in my yard, based on the quality per piece. There was very little waste from my uses.
For two years I sought out sources for discarded glass that I could recycle into a greenhouse. The problem is that you need a lot of glass panels that are the same size and finding old windows in enough quantity that are all the same size is impossible. Then I discovered that a local "used materials" store (ERIC Building Supply) sells used home shower doors for eight dollars a piece. And they have lots of them. As a bonus I discovered that these old doors are made of safety glass and the light is diffused when it passes through it. In all of my research I discovered that glazing was the major expense. Now I had more than enough panels for less than one hundred dollars. Not only was I solving the budget barrier but I was contributing to my philosophy of using as many recycled materials as I could. I was on my way with these two discoveries and I became busy making drawings and plans.
Planning:
Before I built anything permanent, during my research phase, I hungered to do something tangible. So, using only blue Styrofoam panels and silicon glue I constructed this (picture 01 below) simple grow box in the far corner of my backyard. The opening accommodated a single recycled glass shower door. This picture shows that it worked perfectly producing fresh spinach all winter! My first taste of success. Meanwhile I did a lot of reading and planning, which included the development of a 3D rendering in my computer. This helped me see it virtually from all angles. I drew it to scale so I could make measurements and estimates of materials needed. For example, in this early rendering I could count how many bricks and foam panels I’d need, where the wooden guard rails and walkway would go, and I could visualize how the underground insulation (in blue) would go outside of the cement bricks. I planned the wood frame construction as well.
Then I discovered my next limitation. I live in the city and my property is very small. I visited the city building permit department and learned that all of my legal "setbacks" from property lines are already at their limit. This leaves me with absolutely no space to build a new structure attached or freestanding.
However, the loophole is the word, "structure." If I build a greenhouse into which I can walk it is a structure that must meet city building requirements. If I build a cold frame, it doesn't. So I have taken all my research and applied it to the construction of insulated cold frames with the exact same floor space as my intended greenhouse. There is no loss of square footage for growing! My costs to build are one third of what it would have been on a full sized greenhouse.
My first growing frame is in place with this writing. It has an inside growing space of three feet by eight feet, and it is five feet high to accommodate taller plants. There is room to build two more of these in the same strip of ground along the south side of my house, which means I will eventually have 72 square feet of year-round growing area, on a budget.
So, the insulated growing frame was my economic and city code solution. The construction item I spent the most money on was the insulation. The foundation is made of used highway guard rails. The inside surface below ground is lined with large cement bricks. The primary structure is wood and the glazing is three recycled shower doors.
The next article in this newsletter is a narrative step by step of how I built my first successful grow frame.
General description: A. Used highway guard rails form the outside edge of the general foundation of the greenhouse. Railway ties will also work. B. Cement blocks create the walkway outside of the grow box. C. Blueboard Styrofoam insulation is used outside of cement block liners, the same cement blocks that are used for the walkway. These line the inner suface of the grow box embedded into the ground halfway. D. 2"x3" Wood framing, similar to house construction creates the basic structure. E. This unit is attached to the south wall of house, thereby eliminating the problem of the cold north wall, a major problem in stand-alone greenhouses. This rendering became the blueprint and guide for the construction you see on the following pages.
Continued on Next Page
Note to shoppers: The entire schematic plan and the science behind "How It Works" is available on the poster promoted at the bottom of this page. Once you know the solar principles you can always build a successful grow frame, big or small.
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