Heating a greenhouse with poly lines connected to a propane water heater?

[chief73]

Why don't you try the composted woodchip hot water heater,it's easy to build and it's free hot water all you would need is a circulating pump.Check out compost hot water system on youtube.

 

[GP73LPC]

Why don't you try the composted woodchip hot water heater,it's easy to build and it's free hot water all you would need is a circulating pump.Check out compost hot water system on youtube.

thanks for the tip, going to watch those clips now...

 

[supermanlives]

i dug deep trenches for my lines. i sure miss my greenhouses

 

[supermanlives]

even had lights

 

[ronbo51]

I think you could throw a lot of BTU's at the ground before it would really help you. I did quite a pile of radiant floors up in Maine and we always insulated under the slab to direct the heat upward, otherwise the heat goes down and away. You could do it but you would have to dig quite a bit of material away in say a rectangle and then insulate with blue foam, then fill back in with amended soil with your pex buried somewhere in there. Once you built your troughs you'd never have to do it again, just keep bringing in promix or whatever. I built a large solar array for the sunroom in my house using salvaged hot water solar panels that I got cheap. A pump and a big water tank and I had warm floors all winter. Solar water panels make 120 degree water real easy, perfect temp to pump through concrete. Neat thing about pex is that now you don't even have to know how to solder. I's sharkbites and crimp rings and you can plumb anything. If I ever build myself another house it will be on a slab heated by solar, with maybe a little basement hole for a grow room.

 

[dubwise]

I've been building a greenhouse and am trying to come up with a good way to keep it heated in the winter and I was wondering if it would be possible to connect all the pvc (used in the ribs & supports) of the gh to a water heater. Only insulating the outside exposed sides of the pvc. After reading this post and checking out some videos I'm wondering if it's possible to run the aforementioned connected pvc lines back through the raised beds and then on to a water heater, or through multiple compost piles (160f hot water temps in compost is incredible!!!) .it would seem like once the temps evened out entirely it would be easy to maintain an average....but then again, I have no clue about efficiency at all. Great thread!

 

[GP73LPC]

my greenhouse is doing really well right now, but if we were to get some freezing temps for multiple days in a row (which sometimes happens) i was thinking of using 1 or 2 of these coleman propane tent heaters...

 

[supermanlives]

if you use those you can buy an adaptor to refill them from a grill tank and save lots of cash. the adaptor costs like 20$

 

[GP73LPC]

yup, i was aware of that, but thanks for bringing to the attention of everyone else...

K+ brother...

 

[supermanlives]

some of them say 8 hours run time. its 6 at best IMHO i got a mr buddy and a coleman one. with a filter the mr buddy one works directly from a grill tank. my coleman one has a fan

 

[GP73LPC]

i use to have an older coleman model with a fan. the ex wife and i used it camping on many occasions... it used to run most of the night and keep the tent pretty nice.

around here 1 or 2 of those would really do the trick !!!