Diy steel hoop house.

[CrushnYuba]

EDIT: all the pictures in this thread got lost. will be trying to take new pictures to replace them. built a heated 12x40 veg house and a 20x60 auto depp. wanted to show how easy it was to build pro steel greenhouses on the cheap. No reason for anyone to be manually pulling tarps in this day and age.

Wanted to do a quick thread on building steel frame hoop greenhouses. They are cheap and permanent. Won't blow away in the wind or rot. They can be made to be auto light depps pretty cheap and easy as well.
Pvc has no rigidity.it's flimsy, warps in sun. Won't hold it's shape. It will also rot your polyethylene cover material of the poly and pvc come in contact and it WILL come in contact. This makes pvc a temporary structure and pvc is Damn expensive to be a temporary structure. Steel tubing is not much more.
I bend hoops made of 10 ft 1 3/8th tubing. This is what most professional kits are made out of. The building materials and process is the same weather you buy a 8k$ kit from a greenhouse company or if you diy and buy components separately.
I will try to do as much of a complete build it as possible. It's in my spare time.
0906172237 by Yuba Crushin, on Flickr
inside of the auto depp.
0907170917 by Yuba Crushin, on Flickr
12x40
0907170917b by Yuba Crushin, on Flickr
pellet stove

 

[CrushnYuba]

0907171023 by Yuba Crushin, on Flickr
auto depp
0907171026 by Yuba Crushin, on Flickr
motorized roll up sides
0907171030 by Yuba Crushin, on Flickr
dosatron like fert injector. Feeds multiple gardens.

 

[growingcrazy]

Are you using the diygreenhouse bender or a jig that you built yourself?

Could you list the size and supply list to make it easy for people if you have it readily available?

No reason anyone should be building pvc hoops at this point...

 

[Gry]

Looks promising.

 

[Amoeba]

Fuck yea I'm in. Lots of good videos on youtube on DIY pipe bending and what not did you buy a bender or make one yourself?

PVC does have it's advantages I'd say for a quick one season dep, up for a run then tear down and clean up. But all in all I feel the DIY metal hoops would be the best option.

I plan on setting up some outdoor stuff this year for the first time, looking forward to this threads progress.

 

[Bush Dr]

There's one fuck of a lot of steel tube there, as a private individual I doubt you could buy the steel for what they sell it bent

 

[ronbo51]

I am surprised almost all the GH growers here don't do this. Especially capital starved small operators. I have used these frame benders. Your grandmother could bend these frames. Kudos for showing your build. Johnny's Selected Seeds out of Maine sells the tube benders. They call them "high tunnels".

 

[ronbo51]

There's one fuck of a lot of steel tube there, as a private individual I doubt you could buy the steel for what they sell it bent

The steel is sometimes called "top rail" and is available in the fencing section at HD/Lowes, farm stores.

 

[CrushnYuba]

Yea. It's top rail. 1 3/8th. Ground posts are 1 5/8ths fence post. 12 foot wide ribs are 2 pieces. 20 foot wide ribs are 3. Jigs work. Diy or store bought. Hand roll benders suck. Electric benders work the best.
I built a bunch of expensive kits before I started bending my own. The kits used same top rail. In fact I steal unused pieces from the kits if I need it.
This is a veg green house so it won't be auto black out, but at some point I'll do a thread on cheap and easy auto depps. Maybe I'll even make this one an auto depp just so you can't see it from outer space when it's lit up at night.
This will be winter month veg. 2 layers of poly with inflation blower inflating an air gap between the two for insulation. A pellet stove with auto ignition and thermostat for heat and dehumidifying. Lighting will be basic cfls for extending day and also hid for pushing growth on those really overcast days. Im off grid so this is all running off my solar system (and diesel generator when I'm running hid).

That's building the foundation. I use the larger posts that the ribs side into. I use a string to line them up. When you look down the line they should all be dead on and you should just see the first pipe when you look down. This greenhouse is not being build on completely level ground. It's rainy season in norcal and I could not level a pad. It would just turn into a muddy mess this time of year. It's on a slightly southern hill with a bump in the middle and the low point is 3 feet lower then the highest point. The foundation is still 99.99% level.

 

[CrushnYuba]

I Framed north end wall. Today I will be covering the north end wall, attaching wiggle wire channels and installing heater.
Usually for north end walls, I'm all about t1-11 plywood siding but I am going to try this press board stuff this go around because it's 13$ a 4x8 sheet primed.
For heat, this pellet stove is going in. With auto ignition, Pellet is my favorite heat source for greenies. Relatively low fuel cost and with a cheap environment controller with a humidistat function, they do an excellent job dehumidifying. I don't believe in dehumidifiers in greenhouses. You will never see a dehumidifier in a commercial non ganja greenhouse. It's some silly thing that ganja growers came up with because it works indoors. My humidity in my gh is in the 50s when it's raining out.

 

[who dat is]

Subbed as fuck

 

[Oedipus]

Fuck yeah , this looks awesome , nice write up and pic turtotiral. Some inspiration is what i'm needing, thanks xD

 

[Lester Beans]

Excellent diy build! Thanks for taking the time to post it up!

I fully agree DH has no place in a GH. I use a wood stove. I have plenty of firewood, but if I didn't I would go pellets.

I'm curious how you will be building the ends. Everyone does it different.

Thanks again for taking the time!

 

[CrushnYuba]

Lester beans: wood is really great. I heat my house with a wood stove. Wouldn't even dream of using a pellet stove or anything else in my house. In smallish greenhouses in my climate

 

[Bluto]

Looks nice and sturdy

 

[ronbo51]

Love pellet stoves. Had one for almost 20 years in Maine. Nice thing is that you can fill the hopper and go to work all day, or go to sleep at night and everything chugs along. Good call.

 

[CrushnYuba]

My last post got cut off. I use wood for heat in my house..pellet is key for greenhouse. The new ones have thermostats and auto ignition. Let's you go fully automated. It will turn on at night and turn off in the am on its own. On overcast winter days, when solar gain isn't enough to get it up to 70f+, it will run for a few minutes and shut off. When humidity is to high outside (raining out), my controller will heat and vent at the same time in cycles, dropping my humidity better then any dehumidifier. I can explain more about how this works of any of you are interested.
Just wanted to show you one more thing about foundations before I move on. If you hit rock when you are pounding your ground stakes in, stop. If you keep beating it down it will just go in crooked. Just mount the receiver to the box and put another stake in for support as close as you can without hitting rock.

I'm using 1x2 strips all around to mount my wiggle wire to. Using these bent around my end walls is an experiment. They are completely unnecessary if using wiggle wire channel.

O and just a fun picture. I picked up dirt for my starts. I veg my seeds and clones in 20 gallon bags of dirt. Cut the top off the bag and drop a seed start/clone in. Then I cut the bag and drop into it's final spot when it's time to plant. 148 3cft bags.

 

[who dat is]

You may not vote on any more threads today.

Thank you for keeping us in the loop. Good progress

 

[caljim]

Just cruising the forum and found this. Great thread and thanks for taking the time. Really like what your doing.

 

[Fred Sanford]

Very cool and inspiring. Thanks for sharing. 5 stars.