Everything DIY

Are you thinking of building a greenhouse? My brother and I have built several over the past few years, each of which having their own unique shape and style. We learned a lot over the course of the construction and use of these greenhouses, and These are arranged in the order of simplest to the most in depth. I have more information on each greenhouse, including links to the videos of the build in the description below. Up first we have our PVC greenhouse. This is 12 by 19 feet built with PVC and it's 2 by 6 cedars for the baseboards. This is anchored by driving some 2 by 2 boards into the ground and screwing them to the baseboards. And one thing you want to keep in mind if you're building this sort of greenhouse is to use UV treated PVC or paint it with some sort of latex paint for that UV protection. Pros for this one is it's a simple build. It was built by one person and it's very cost effective. Not a lot of materials go into making this and we had the PVC and most of the l So it wasn't extremely expensive for us to construct this. Another pro is that this is angled to be able to shed snow and deal with our snow loads up here and this did really well in the winter. The last pro I had on my list here is the size. It's 12 by 19 feet. It's very large and especially considering the amount of time and money that went into this thing, it's a good deal. Some cons for this design is whenever you use 6 mil plastic you're going to have to help with snow. So whenever there's a big snow storm you have to get outside and get the snow off the plastic. Luckily the angle of the PVC makes that pretty easy. The biggest con in my eyes of this design is that it's built using PVC. It's probably not the most long term building material and it's probably not the most ideal material to have around your food. But for a short term solution this is a great option. You're going to have to replace the plastic on this one every 3 to 5 years so you want to keep that in mind. And the rigid plastic panels We also have some pretty big issues with bugs in this greenhouse and that's probably something you want to keep in mind if you're building this yourself. Maybe come up with some sort of solution to capture some bugs and keep this place a little cleaner. I didn't really figure anything out. This was very early on into our greenhouse journey as well so we've learned a lot since then but bugs is something to keep in mind and plan for as well. But overall I would say this is a great greenhouse. For what you're getting in terms of size and winter performance for investment of time and money to build, it's a great deal and it would be a good option for you if you're just looking to get started. Build something to get you up and running and it should give you at least a few years of performance before you really need to start switching materials out or rebuilding. Up next we have our metal hoop house. This is also 12 by 19 feet with the same foundation with cedar base boards and 2x2's driven into the ground. But instead of PVC pipe this has metal fence conduit that's bent and spaced every almost 4 feet apart. Some pros for this is it's a simple build and it's also cost effective because there's not too many materials that go into completing the construction. However, this fence conduit has gotten a little bit more expensive in recent years. We built this 5 years ago when this was very reasonably priced but ever since then prices and everything has gone up including this metal fence conduit but it'still affordable. And another pro is that metal lasts a very long time so it'still a simple build but you should be able to get a few more years out of this structure as comparing it to something with PVC or wood or something else along those lines. This greenhouse has lasted 3 winters so far so this metal is doing a really good job. It's also very big. It's 12 by 19 feet. This gives you plenty of room to move around in there and have a lot of stuff growing. And some cons for this style of greenhouse is first of all it's not angled for snow so it's not ideally shaped for shedding snow and even though we haven't had any issues with it so far it's just a little bit harder to get the snow off of it when you go out there to clear it off and the snow kind of sinks in between the metal conduit because it's not angled to slide off of it so it kind of sits there until you get it off of the plastic. So I would say that's one of the biggest cons. And the rest of the cons that I have are just the result of using the 6 mil plastic so you have to get snow off of it. It's only going to last 3 to 5 years. There's going to be a lot of bugs inside of there or at least that's what we found. And 6 mil plastic doesn't regulate temperature as effectively as rigid plastic panels which I'm going to talk about in my later builds. Again I think this is a very good greenhouse for the price and what's required to build it. This current greenhouse has made it through 3 winters so far. Structure is showing no signs of slowing down and you just have to keep replacing the plastic as needed and this should last a very long time. So n This greenhouse is 10 by 16 feet and for a foundation it has 4 by 4 anchors and 2 by 4 baseboards and we bent 4 cattle panels over to create the structure. I also made some step by step plans and an interactive material list for this build so if you're interested in that information I'll be down in the description as well. Some pros for this greenhouse is n It's not extremely hard to put together and cattle panels are very versatile. You can arrange your own greenhouse or set up in a lot of different ways and the versatility of the cattle panels is useful because you can bend them to whatever width or height you need them to be. This gives you a lot of options in how you construct your own greenhouse. More pros is how it handles snow load or at least how it's handled it for us so far. Cattle panels provide support throughout the whole plastic instead of the first designs where I showed you whether it's just a few poles holding up the whole plastic. So that really helps with handling snow and we put a ridge beam and ridge beam support in this greenhouse so that has had no issues at all handling snow load and that should keep these cattle panels from collapsing in on itself and this should be around for quite a few years. And a con of this greenhouse is kind of along those same lines. I know I just said that it handles winter and snow load really well and it does but you have to put a ridge beam and ridge beam support in there if you're in a winter Also these cattle panels have a lot of sharp jagged edges that will rip holes in the 6mm plastic so you want to make sure that you get some greenhouse tape or some foam rolls to cover all those up because we actually ripped the first sheet of plastic we put on here and that's just a nightmare and a complete waste so make sure you're taking that into account if you're building one of these. And then the rest of the cons are in regard to using 6mm plastic which is it's only going to last 3-5 years. There's winter maintenance required it's not going to regulate temperatures as well but it's very cost effective you're still getting a pretty big bang for your buck build it very simply or add in some amenities So next up is my personal favorite which is the A-Frame greenhouse. It's 8 feet by 8 feet and it's framed with cedar and it has rigid plastic corrugated panels for a foundation we use square post anchors and metal deck plates to anchor the structure. I also put together a material list with up to date pricing for this build we actually bought most of the material for this greenhouse a couple years ago and I went and looked at the prices I paid on my orders versus what the prices are now on my up to date material list and some of these materials have gotten really expensive especially the foundation pieces We had some thermometers in here at the end of fall and when it would get below freezing it would stay up into the higher thirties approaching forty degrees Fahrenheit so it would stay above freezing and even at midday it would only get about ten degrees hotter than it was outside so it was very good at regulating temperatures and one thing that I'm really a fan of when it comes to an A-frame is its ability to shed snow so this is its first winter and so far the snow has been unable to even stay on there for more than a day or so but this thing has had no issues with winter so far and we built it to be able to shed snow and so far it's doing exactly that. Another pro of this style of greenhouse is that it's very easy to collect rainwater. We made some gutters out of some scrap metal we had lying around and we collect the rainwater feed it back into the beds through a tube and it'sort of a self-watering greenhouse. We still have to iron out some kinks to get the water spread evenly throughout the beds but it's very easy to collect rainwater when you pitch a roof The next pro that I have on my list is that there's been no bug issues so far. So now it's time for cons for this greenhouse and this was a very hard list to put together. I love this greenhouse, I love how it turned out. I'm a fan of everything about it. The biggest thing I would say is just overall price. Whenever you're doing something with cedar it's going to be expensive and then when you factor in the new inflation that's happened over the past couple years everything else is even more expensive including the cedar. What we paid for this versus what it costs now to build the same exact structure it's a very big difference. So I would say overall price is a con. The only other thing I could say for a negative about this is probably that it takes a little bit more skill to build than the first three concepts that I went over. But I would say it's doable especially if you have an extra set of hands helping you out and I have a lot of videos about the build of this greenhouse that I'll link in the description below if you're interested. And finally, n This greenhouse is 12 by 16 feet and we really wanted to build something that would last for as long as possible. So a lot of the pros for this one have to do with how well it was built. It should last a really long time. We poured a concrete foundation and we used these twin wall plastic panels. These panels have an extra air layer and that is supposed to dramatically increase its thermal insulation. Not only that, they're also under warranty for 10 years against hail damage, weathering and any loss of light transmission. So we should be getting huge harvest of food out of this thing for years to come. Another pro of stick framing a greenhouse is you have more control over the dimensions so you can kind of build it to fit whatever area you have or whatever shape or size you need it to be. Cons for this greenhouse would be it's very expensive. You're going to be paying for a lot of different materials and there's a lot that goes into building a structure that's this size. And it's a pretty in depth build. There's a lot of skills that you need to know and there was a lot of skills we had to learn to build this greenhouse. This was our first time ever pouring concrete. Just keep that in mind. It's definitely not impossible and I'm sure a lot of you out there could do this no problem. But for us, it took a lot of time and energy and learning to get this thing built. But we got it done and we made a video about it and I'm going to be making more videos about the build in the future. So check those out if you want to see how we built this. As of the recording of this video, the interior of this greenhouse isn't finished and I'm going to have to get out there as soon as I can to get all that set up for this year. And I'm planning on building some sort of heating system for this greenhouse. It's going to be cheap, easy, simple. And I'm going to be doc So that's it for the overview and pros and cons of different styles of greenhouses that we've built and have experience with. Hopefully this can help you out if you're looking into building your own greenhouse. If you have any questions, put them in the comments and I'll be sure to answer those. If you And I plan on doing a lot of temperature readings and experiments and updates throughout the year and all these greenhouses. So if you would