How do you ventilate a hoophouse in cold weather?
- Thread starter plantingplants
- Start date
that's cool you have Coleman's books. He is a real pioneer in cold weather vegetable production. I toured his spread in the late 90's. Nice guy. He benefited tremendously from Helen and Scott Nearing being his neighbors and mentors. Anyone who has not hipped themselves to the Nearing's story is missing a great tale. The entire back to the land movement started with them.
St. Phatty
Active member
One option is to vent the House air (from the Living Quarters) into the hoop-house.
jaybodankly
Member
Look for solar vents. They have a piston with a heat reactive fluid in them. as it warms up 50 degrees they start to expand. At 70 degrees it fully opens.
HillMizer
Member
For a vegging greenhouse I don't worry about the humidity much, just stay on top of PM controls. For a flowering greenhouse I use a dehumidifer and heat. I feel like in the foothills if it's too cold to open the sides then it's too wet for ventilation to remove much moisture. Know what I mean? If it's dry enough outside then your greenhouse is warm enough to open. Not always of course.
I've done the wood heat, but pulling a tarp is difficult with a stove pipe and you have to be careful and set it up correctly. You need a lot of pipe above the roof for draw too, I had my greenhouse get smoked out and it damaged a lot of foliage. I have often thought that the outdoor wood hydronic furnace routed to radiator units would be a good way to heat multiple greenhouses safely using minimal amount of equipment. You could take it with you when you move too if especially if you don't bury the lines.
I've worked with compost heat and radiant heat too. Got hot showers but we got dumptruck loads of chicken manure. Here's the thing- You need a fuck ton of insulation on the ground or else the ground will steal that heat. Radiant heat uses complicated valving to ensure that the first plant doesn't fry while the last plant freezes. I think it's too difficult to do on a budget. I worked on a big project where we had to redo the commercial propane radiant system 2x to get it to work. It's a lot of work to build a radiant system that doesn't work, professional design is important.
The Modine style heaters have a forced exhaust that you can route in a way to make it come out of the tarp safely. You can choose to exhaust into the greenhouse and keep the co2 but also keep the excess water that comes with it like ronbo said. This is probably the most common and economical commercial heating system.
Commercial dehuey for sure. There's a restoration place in Sac that sells dri-eaze and Vital sells them in Grass Valley too. The 70 pint residential is better than nuthin for a baby greenhouse, just hook up a gravity hose and always buy the replacement plan
My two cents is, for veg the humidity doesn't matter much if you don't have it overpacked. For flower you should have a pretty nice setup with a good amount of supplemental light to get nice results. Often I feel it's better to save energy until the sun comes rather than tie up resources on a disappointing run. A par meter may be a useful tool to use.
Good luck mate
I've done the wood heat, but pulling a tarp is difficult with a stove pipe and you have to be careful and set it up correctly. You need a lot of pipe above the roof for draw too, I had my greenhouse get smoked out and it damaged a lot of foliage. I have often thought that the outdoor wood hydronic furnace routed to radiator units would be a good way to heat multiple greenhouses safely using minimal amount of equipment. You could take it with you when you move too if especially if you don't bury the lines.
I've worked with compost heat and radiant heat too. Got hot showers but we got dumptruck loads of chicken manure. Here's the thing- You need a fuck ton of insulation on the ground or else the ground will steal that heat. Radiant heat uses complicated valving to ensure that the first plant doesn't fry while the last plant freezes. I think it's too difficult to do on a budget. I worked on a big project where we had to redo the commercial propane radiant system 2x to get it to work. It's a lot of work to build a radiant system that doesn't work, professional design is important.
The Modine style heaters have a forced exhaust that you can route in a way to make it come out of the tarp safely. You can choose to exhaust into the greenhouse and keep the co2 but also keep the excess water that comes with it like ronbo said. This is probably the most common and economical commercial heating system.
Commercial dehuey for sure. There's a restoration place in Sac that sells dri-eaze and Vital sells them in Grass Valley too. The 70 pint residential is better than nuthin for a baby greenhouse, just hook up a gravity hose and always buy the replacement plan
My two cents is, for veg the humidity doesn't matter much if you don't have it overpacked. For flower you should have a pretty nice setup with a good amount of supplemental light to get nice results. Often I feel it's better to save energy until the sun comes rather than tie up resources on a disappointing run. A par meter may be a useful tool to use.
Good luck mate
For a vegging greenhouse I don't worry about the humidity much, just stay on top of PM controls. For a flowering greenhouse I use a dehumidifer and heat. I feel like in the foothills if it's too cold to open the sides then it's too wet for ventilation to remove much moisture. Know what I mean? If it's dry enough outside then your greenhouse is warm enough to open. Not always of course.
I've done the wood heat, but pulling a tarp is difficult with a stove pipe and you have to be careful and set it up correctly. You need a lot of pipe above the roof for draw too, I had my greenhouse get smoked out and it damaged a lot of foliage. I have often thought that the outdoor wood hydronic furnace routed to radiator units would be a good way to heat multiple greenhouses safely using minimal amount of equipment. You could take it with you when you move too if especially if you don't bury the lines.
I've worked with compost heat and radiant heat too. Got hot showers but we got dumptruck loads of chicken manure. Here's the thing- You need a fuck ton of insulation on the ground or else the ground will steal that heat. Radiant heat uses complicated valving to ensure that the first plant doesn't fry while the last plant freezes. I think it's too difficult to do on a budget. I worked on a big project where we had to redo the commercial propane radiant system 2x to get it to work. It's a lot of work to build a radiant system that doesn't work, professional design is important.
The Modine style heaters have a forced exhaust that you can route in a way to make it come out of the tarp safely. You can choose to exhaust into the greenhouse and keep the co2 but also keep the excess water that comes with it like ronbo said. This is probably the most common and economical commercial heating system.
Commercial dehuey for sure. There's a restoration place in Sac that sells dri-eaze and Vital sells them in Grass Valley too. The 70 pint residential is better than nuthin for a baby greenhouse, just hook up a gravity hose and always buy the replacement plan
My two cents is, for veg the humidity doesn't matter much if you don't have it overpacked. For flower you should have a pretty nice setup with a good amount of supplemental light to get nice results. Often I feel it's better to save energy until the sun comes rather than tie up resources on a disappointing run. A par meter may be a useful tool to use.
Good luck mate
A lot of solid info here on this post. Thanks
plantingplants
Active member
Yea definitely. Everything I needed to know with the experience to back it up. Thanks Mizer!
