Greenhouse shopping in Grass Valley - Forever Flowering vs Conleys vs Alternatives

[Yes4Prop215]

i have a possible lead on a pot friendly engineer who does permits…but I'm just not sure i want the city coming out here, i have a few other code violations lol. i talked to multiple excavators in town about helping with permits and all of them said "you dont need it" even when i offered to pay extra.

i am well aware of the latest news articles and other threats of code enforcement due to illegal grading. i already went into town and got the permit application and everything….its the damn environmental impact survey and engineers that are just such an impossible hassle to deal with.

im gonna have my excavator look at the forms and at least try to comply with as much as possible regards to drainage etc…

what if i have them out here and they deny my permit? its gonna take months to appeal, months to even handle the permits themselves. i have numerous friends closer to town to did grading and installed GH, carpports, etc without getting hassled by county. if they come out il just have to get the checkbook out…it is risky. I'm not happy about it, but this whole damn game is a risk out here now because of measure A. would i rather risk an entire years salary on a full season crop that could possibly get compliance checked? or go light dep and risk a permit headache but still pull at least a crop off.

when we talked to forever flowering, they told us in the past year only THREE people applied for the permits, thats insane considering they are installing super expensive greenhouses. I'm just putting up cold frames, worse case scenario i pay up for permits, or hire people to take the GH down and move them somewhere else.

god i wish i bought property with more flat land this is ridiculous!!!

 

[CanniDo Cowboy]

I hear ya bro...Damned if ya do-damned if ya dont...Every time you read about a "visit gone bad', no matter the mj violation(s), the county dicks always seem to tack on a 'un-permitted grading" ticket. Not sure how often the violation sticks in that you can move a certain amount of soil without a grading permit, the cut off being around 250 cubic yards. If you have a D-9 Cat and its blowing up the country side, youre dancing with the devil. lol

Personally, I wouldnt have ANYONE handle my permit process, if there is one. Having a business do it just makes shit more complicated in that the county will run them to ground. Pulling the permit as a homeowner, you control all aspects. Before pulling the permit you learn all the obstacles and things youll need to work around and you can kill the whole process if it gets too much of a pain without being out any money. The greenhouse company will push forward no matter what to save the sale, leaving you to reap the whirlwinds...

You dont need an engineer for the grading if its just a typical pad. Just get a tractor out there, scratch a pad and move on. I graded an 150 x 300 arena area for working my horses without any fanfare BUT it was a relatively flat area to begin with. If youre considering moving a mountain side, thats where you can get all bogged down with county BS. Man, sometimes certain properties just arent worth all the county hassle.

There is no 'coming out to deny a permit". All that happens is pretty basic and handled 'in-house". You give em your address, tell em what you want to do, theyll ask you the particulars and then theyll tell if ya can do what it is you want to do and what you need to do to get it done - pretty simple (on the surface anyway).

Getting caught without a grading permit will be the least of your problems because if the county discovers it, you will most likely already have a greenhouse built and doing the green thing, right? At that point, the grading part will be minor shit.. If you do have a grading permit, theyll still look at the greenhouse, and if that isnt also permitted, they make you permit the greenhouse and by then theyre so far up your ass you'll wish you lived somewhere else. Like I said, damned if you do, damned if ya dont...cc

 

[furrywall11]

I had both of my 2x72 cold frames with roll up sides, metal end walls and, golden arms installed for 8k..At first we were quoted 12k but, after expressing my shock and offering to be the gofer for a day and sling cement bags and dig holes we got it down a bit. I've been on site through the whole thing and, I have a new appreciation for all the work that goes into the complete setup. It's definitely worth the money to have it installed vs the learning curve...unless of course, you're down to your last money and have plenty of time.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

yea i have a few friends who want to install it for me and offered to undercut their price..but i honestly think at 4k per 80 footer its very reasonable install fee. its not worth trying to save a few thousand and deal with the learning curve. il just have to put my friends on another project i gots many!

cannido- yea its definately a damned if you do, damned if you dont. i set up a few appts tmro with local excavating and engineer companies and inquired a bit about getting the grading permits. one company said that butte county can get it done in 2 weeks, but they outsource the engineer part. so i called an engineer and am gonna meet with them soon.

I'm just very very sketched about having any county people on my property. i have numerous code violations already, mainly because i have a storage container thats illegally wired up and have conduit running through some of the trees to power the water pumps in the field.

Would just really hate to expose myself for no reason. its just a god damn tricky situationa nd one thats stressing me out right now especially considering I'm spending a damn ton of money on these greenhouses. but like i said i guess worse case scenario i take the GH down and stick them somewhere else.

also, this property technically isn't in my name (owner carry) so i could just play dumb with the county, claim i sub-leased a sub-lease and that my tenants did so without my permission. and just back out of this bullshit and let the owner deal with it. this isn't a legalization property by any means, its always been and will always be a black market marijuana producing property/bug out/ ATV trail ride/ shoot guns in my driveway kind of property lol. its a mountainous property tucked into a north facing valley slope that is very hard to spot from the air.

if this was 10 flat acres in AG land on AG water, i would damn sure be pulling every possible permit available.

 

[Backyard Farmer]

If you want my input hit me up and we'll talk , I don't have any interest in openly contributing...too many people giving opinin with out going through the experience...and I don't feel like getting any input on the experience I went through

 

[Yes4Prop215]

yea sounds stressful both the reps at conleys and forever flowering said they have heard bad stories about environtech. even though environtech seems to have some of the better prices for the frames themselves. would love to see some pics of that i know you got the higher end one!

 

[Backyard Farmer]

Here's the direct source for Envirotech frame


https://www.rimolgreenhouses.com

The spot in rough n ready also sells Rimol frames ...

The blackout is from total energy group. It's cable driven and I haven't even ran my system yet and they'll be coming to figure out why the motor leaks oil constantly ... The amount of money I've spent on permitting, installing theblackout because EGS sent it with no instructions and incomplete , and lost on not getting to run it yet is real stressful and if I wasn't able to have had he funds set aside for this project outside of other expenses it would have crushed me...ie., I am not depending on getting a crop out of it...I just want to...sometime this year would be nice.

EGS has one thing going for it, Zev will do whatever it takes to fix whatever mistake his crew made. Otherwise, it's a shit show and I wouldn't give them a dollar ...

I just went off fisher and a few other friends recommendations of going with them...

My neighbor down the road got a 3600 sq ft thru vital with every bell and whistle installed in shitty weather in a bit over a month..i got my shit from EGS dropped off in a pile of metal this time last year and still haven't popped a crop off in either Gh..

What are you getting for 4k in labor ...seems impossible to do that or they're payingnthemselves less than 15 an hour

 

[Yes4Prop215]

nice man thanks for the advice BYF. sounds like a pain in the ass! always cost overruns in this business…and seems kind of overwhelming considering there are spots up in WA and CO that are installing dozens and dozens of greenhouses through these companies. seriously theres a project in washington building 85 greenhouses on one property, insane! and here i am going through all this BS just for 3.

the labor is 4200 and does seem cheap, but this cold frame light dep design is very simple, one of the reasons I'm going this route because the motor driven tarp systems on the FF and conleys just seemed a little too technical and more things could go wrong. the cold frame system is automated but can easily switch over to manual if anything breaks.

i should have clarified, 4200 is just for the standard cold frame and light dep. its another 1800 to have the GH installed on 2 foot risers. then theres another 1k or so per GH on gravel and grading. and then me and the boys are gonna do all the exhaust fans, wiring, etc ourselves. since the cold frame design is simpler and they are making a good amount of $$ off marking up the cold frame itself, and its only one guy and 2 manual labor helpers i think thats why its so cheap. i think its reasonable considering they are charging 13.500 for a cold frame i can find on EGS for around 7k. then the automated tarp system is another 2k so 15.500 for everything.

the tarp system is super simple, it operates similar to a golden arm but with a chain attached to long poles that span the length. kind of hard to describe but will post pictures when i can.

 

[Backyard Farmer]

that's crazy cheap...like so cheap its questionable

 

[Yes4Prop215]

well luckily my friend is their first test subject before me, if their labor does a shit job then i can make adjustments. they basically figured the labor at around 1k a day, and he claims it only takes him 3 days tops to set up the cold frame and tarp system. I'm assuming the extra 1k is just a buffer for gas, lodging etc. it definately sounds cheap compared to the ridiculous 30-40k labor and 3-4 week build time that FF and conleys are charging, but then again their system is much more complicated.

fisher and his crew managed to put up his 20x96 cold frames in 2 days! and my other homie got his 30x60 up in 4 days with only 3 guys. so who knows…..hopefully it all works out but I'm kinda nervous about it! luckily i have several good friends who are contractors/construction guys (same guys who built my warehouse) on hand so if anything goes wrong we can fix it. I'm mostly worried about stability and the concrete footing, leveling, etc. the actual frames themselves seem pretty easy to put together once the base is taken care of.

 

[Backyard Farmer]

We built my no dep gh just 2 people in a week if you add up the time we actually apent on it that's all the work ... From site prep to coverings and all accessories

 

[25ftGreatWhite]

reduce plants counts and run full term. keep the capital and invest in AG land. if you're being reasonable its only code enforcement, and they only have inspection warrants, and they will have over 5000 grows to enforce in the county.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

i was wondering what exactly an inspection warrant is? in the recent bust it mentions first code enforcement served an inspection warrant, but were denied entry into the property. but the CE officers claimed they could visually see a greenhouse from the gate, and thats what enabled them to get a real search warrant via the sheriffs office.

 

[z-ro]

As nice as 50-200k$ greenies are, you can get similar results for a fraction of the price with car ports and 5 gallon buckets of cement. That way your nonpermanent, don't need permits and aren't being taken to town by some business with highly inflated prices that's catering to growers who don't know any better. While everyone is running around trying to piece together parts and kits, missing parts, contractors etc etc, my shits been built for a month now and am about to start flowering my first round starting March 21. Sure it's not as pretty as a professional system but that's not what this is, it's a setup to actually make money, not spend it.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

nice march 21 is a good early flip date. I'm aiming to have my 60 footer flipped by early-mid april, already got a bunch of nice 2-3 foot starts in 5 gals that are ready to go in as soon as its built. but the other two are gonna be staggered behind a bit, those are still clones at the moment and need some veg time to get their sea legs.

they have some nice carports in the farmtek catalogs, almost made me consider just doing that and pulling tarp! but i need to have a permanent cover on my cold frames so they can't see any plants.

 

[rives]

Perhaps you haven't heard about Reverge Anselmo, Shasta County, and the grading permit debacle. He lost, and he had some pretty deep pockets.....

"the county threatened Anselmo with $18.6 million in fines and said if he doesn't pay up it could have a receiver seize control of his winery, restaurant, recently completed chapel and other property in the Inwood Valley east of Millville.

This legal war all stems from a $260 grading permit that Anselmo refused to get back in 2007 because, he argued, it wasn't needed to do routine ranch work — he was clearing berry vines and snags from an overgrown pasture on a property one and a half miles from the parcel that eventually became his winery and restaurant."

http://www.redding.com/opinion/marc-beauchamp-county-to-anselmo-pay-us-186

 

[Yes4Prop215]

^holy shit thats fucking insane. what was the outcome of that? I've heard of anselmo wineries. i would go fucking postal on the BOS and whoever responsible for that shit. its straight government bureaucracy and criminal on their part for power abuse. shit with 12 million invested……thats war.

 

[rives]

He finally gave up and put it up for auction. He eventually settled the permit violations for $1.35 million, then got sued again by his neighbors. He had over $30 million invested, had a monthly payroll of @ $80,000, and got $8.3 million for the place. Shasta County pretty much cut off their nose to spite their face.

http://www.redding.com/news/local-news/in-wake-of-lawsuit-anselmo-vineyards-closes

 

[CanniDo Cowboy]

Actually, there's a lot more to the Shasta County/Anselmo story but the end result tells the tale. Neither side can be seen as completely in the right in that Anselmo just kept poking the tiger with a stick with a lot of foolish antics and Shasta County, well, they proved that they could be more above the law than he thought he was...

Most of us average gro-schmucks wont ever get into a hi-dollar scrap like the heavyweight championship Shasta County/Anselmo battle was but the message is clear - Its a battle you dont want or need at any level. The county will wear you down with bureaucratic BS and beat you with financial attrition using, ironically, your tax dollars that pay their wages.

Its a fine line you walk between obtaining and side stepping proper permits and such. Sometimes you can get creative and beat the county permit system but it only takes once for them to come knocking and all your sly doins will come back to bite you in the ass, in a big hurry...When someone mentions Shasta County, my first thought is - like most counties - Relentless...

On a positive note, Anselmo wont be seen flying his helicopter around the surrounding areas of his vineyard like he used to, looking for and ratting out any MJ gardens he spied from the air. Sometimes, things just even out in the long run......cc

 

[rives]

It was an interesting tussle to watch from afar.

The one lesson that should be taken from it was not to fuck with a petty bureaucrat who has nothing better to do than make your life miserable regardless of how much money or how "important" that you think that you are.